The Works of Horace
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And shatters iron locks to thunder forth her wars.
So far of this matter; at another opportunity [I may investigate] whether [a comedy] be a true poem or not: now I shall only consider this point, whether this [satiric] kind of writing be deservedly an object of your suspicion.Sulcius the virulent, and Caprius hoarse with their malignancy, walk [openly], and with their libels too [in their hands]; each of them a singular terror to robbers: but if a man lives honestly and with clean hands, he may despise them both.Though you be like highwaymen, Coelus and Byrrhus, I am not [a common accuser], like Caprius and Sulcius; why should you be afraid of me?No shop nor stall holds my books, which the sweaty hands of the vulgar and of Hermogenes Tigellius may soil.I repeat to nobody, except my intimates, and that when I am pressed; nor any where, and before any body.There are many who recite their writings in the middle of the forum; and who [do it] while bathing: the closeness of the place, [it seems,] gives melody to the voice.This pleases coxcombs, who never consider whether they do this to no purpose, or at an unseasonable time.But you, says he, delight to hurt people, and this you do out of a mischievous disposition.From what source do you throw this calumny upon me?Is any one then your voucher, with whom I have lived?He who backbites his absent friend; [nay more,] who does not defend, at another's accusing him; who affects to raise loud laughs in company, and the reputation of a funny fellow, who can feign things he never saw; who cannot keep secrets; he is a dangerous man: be you, Roman, aware of him.You may often see it [even in crowded companies], where twelve sup together on three couches; one of which shall delight at any rate to asperse the rest, except him who furnishes the bath; and him too afterward in his liquor, when truth-telling Bacchus opens the secrets of his heart.Yet this man seems entertaining, and well-bred, and frank to you, who are an enemy to the malignant: but do I, if I have laughed because the fop Rufillus smells all perfumes, and Gorgonius, like a he-goat, appear insidious and a snarler to you?If by any means mention happen to be made of the thefts of Petillius Capitolinus in your company, you defend him after your manner: [as thus,] Capitolinus has had me for a companion and a friend from childhood, and being applied to, has done many things on my account: and I am glad that he lives secure in the city; but I wonder, notwithstanding, how he evaded that sentence.This is the very essence of black malignity, this is mere malice itself: which crime, that it shall be far remote from my writings, and prior to them from my mind, I promise, if I can take upon me to promise any thing sincerely of myself.If I shall say any thing too freely, if perhaps too ludicrously, you must favor me by your indulgence with this allowance.For my excellent father inured me to this custom, that by noting each particular vice I might avoid it by the example [of others].When he exhorted me that I should live thriftily, frugally, and content with what he had provided for me; don't you see, [would he say,] how wretchedly the son of Albius lives?and how miserably Barrus?A strong lesson to hinder any one from squandering away his patrimony.When he would deter me from filthy fondness for a light woman: [take care, said he,] that you do not resemble Sectanus.That I might not follow adulteresses, when I could enjoy a lawful amour: the character cried he, of Trobonius, who was caught in the fact, is by no means creditable.The philosopher may tell you the reasons for what is better to be avoided, and what to be pursued.It is sufficient for me, if I can preserve the morality traditional from my forefathers, and keep your life and reputation inviolate, so long as you stand in need of a guardian: so soon as age shall have strengthened your limbs and mind, you will swim without cork.In this manner he formed me, as yet a boy: and whether he ordered me to do any particular thing: You have an authority for doing this: [then] he instanced some one of the select magistrates: or did he forbid me [any thing]; can you doubt, [says he,] whether this thing be dishonorable, and against your interest to be done, when this person and the other is become such a burning shame for his bad character [on these accounts]?As a neighboring funeral dispirits sick gluttons, and through fear of death forces them to have mercy upon themselves; so other men's disgraces often deter tender minds from vices.From this [method of education] I am clear from all such vices, as bring destruction along with them: by lighter foibles, and such as you may excuse, I am possessed.And even from these, perhaps, a maturer age, the sincerity of a friend, or my own judgment, may make great reductions.For neither when I am in bed, or in the piazzas, am I wanting to myself: this way of proceeding is better; by doing such a thing I shall live more comfortably; by this means I shall render myself agreeable to my friends; such a transaction was not clever; what, shall I, at any time, imprudently commit any thing like it?These things I resolve in silence by myself.When I have any leisure, I amuse myself with my papers.This is one of those lighter foibles [I was speaking of]: to which if you do not grant your indulgence, a numerous band of poets shall come, which will take my part (for we are many more in number), and, like the Jews, we will force you to come over to our numerous party.
SATIRE V.
He describes a certain journey of his from Rome to Brundusium with great pleasantry
Having left mighty Rome, Aricia received me in but a middling inn: Heliodorus the rhetorician, most learned in the Greek language, was my fellow-traveller: thence we proceeded to Forum-Appi, stuffed with sailors and surly landlords.This stage, but one for better travellers than we, being laggard we divided into two; the Appian way is less tiresome to bad travelers.Here I, on account of the water, which was most vile, proclaim war against my belly, waiting not without impatience for my companions while at supper.Now the night was preparing to spread her shadows upon the earth, and to display the constellations in the heavens.Then our slaves began to be liberal of their abuse to the watermen, and the watermen to our slaves."Here bring to.""You are stowing in hundreds; hold, now sure there is enough."Thus while the fare is paid, and the mule fastened a whole hour is passed away.The cursed gnats, and frogs of the fens, drive off repose.While the waterman and a passenger, well-soaked with plenty of thick wine, vie with one another in singing the praises of their absent mistresses: at length the passenger being fatigued, begins to sleep; and the lazy waterman ties the halter of the mule, turned out a-grazing, to a stone, and snores, lying flat on his back.And now the day approached, when we saw the boat made no way; until a choleric fellow, one of the passengers, leaps out of the boat, and drubs the head and sides of both mule and waterman with a willow cudgel.At last we were scarcely set ashore at the fourth hour.We wash our faces and hands in thy water, O Feronia.Then, having dined we crawled on three miles; and arrive under Anxur, which is built up on rocks that look white to a great distance.Maecenas was to come here, as was the excellent Cocceius.Both sent ambassadors on matters of great importance, having been accustomed to reconcile friends at variance.Here, having got sore eyes, I was obliged to use the black ointment.In the meantime came Maecenas, and Cocceius, and Fonteius Capito along with them, a man of perfect polish, and intimate with Mark Antony, no man more so.
Without regret we passed Fundi, where Aufidius Luscus was praetor, laughing at the honors of that crazy scribe, his praetexta, laticlave, and pan of incense.At our next stage, being weary, we tarry in the city of the Mamurrae, Murena complimenting us with his house, and Capito with his kitchen.
The next day arises, by much the most agreeable to all: for Plotius, and Varius, and Virgil met us at Sinuessa; souls more candid ones than which the world never produced, nor is there a person in/the world more bound to them than myself.Oh what embraces, and what transports were there!While I am in my senses, nothing can I prefer to a pleasant friend.The village, which is next adjoining to the bridge of Campania, accommodated us with lodging [at night]; and the public officers with such a quantity of fuel and salt as they are obliged to [by law].From this place the mules deposited their pack-saddles at Capua betimes [in the morning].Maecenas goes to play [at tennis]; but I and Virgil to our repose: for to play at tennis is hurtful to weak eyes and feeble constitutions.
From this place the villa of Cocceius, situated above the Caudian inns, which abounds with plenty, receives us.Now, my muse, I beg of you briefly to relate the engagement between the buffoon Sarmentus and Messius Cicirrus; and from what ancestry descended each began the contest.The illustrious race of Messius-Oscan: Sarmentus's mistress is still alive.Sprung from such families as these, they came to the combat.First, Sarmentus: "I pronounce thee to have the look of a mad horse."We laugh; and Messius himself [says], "I accept your challenge:" and wags his head."O!"cries he, "if the horn were not cut off your forehead, what would you not do; since, maimed as you are, you bully at such a rate?"For a foul scar has disgraced the left part of Messius's bristly forehead.Cutting many jokes upon his Campanian disease, and upon his face, he desired him to exhibit Polyphemus's dance: that he had no occasion for a mask, or the tragic buskins.Cicirrus [retorted] largely to these: he asked, whether he had consecrated his chain to the household gods according to his vow; though he was a scribe, [he told him] his mistress's property in him was not the less.Lastly, he asked, how he ever came to run away; such a lank meager fellow, for whom a pound of corn [a-day] would be ample.We were so diverted, that we continued that supper to an unusual length.
Hence we proceed straight on for Beneventum; where the bustling landlord almost burned himself, in roasting some lean thrushes: for, the fire falling through the old kitchen [floor], the spreading flame made a great progress toward the highest part of the roof.Then you might have seen the hungry guests and frightened slaves snatching their supper out [of the flames], and everybody endeavoring to extinguish the fire.
After this Apulia began to discover to me her well-known mountains, which the Atabulus scorches [with his blasts]: and through which we should never have crept, unless the neighboring village of Trivicus had received us, not without a smoke that brought tears into our eyes; occasioned by a hearth's burning some green boughs with the leaves upon them.Here, like a great fool as I was, I wait till midnight for a deceitful mistress; sleep, however, overcomes me while meditating love; and disagreeable dreams make me ashamed of myself and every thing about me.
Hence we were bowled away in chaises twenty-four miles, intending to stop at a little town, which one cannot name in a verse, but it is easily enough known by description.For water is sold here, though the worst in the world; but their bread is exceeding fine, inasmuch that the weary traveler is used to carry it willingly on his shoulders; for [the bread] at Canusium is gritty; a pitcher of water is worth no more [than it is here]: which place was formerly built by the valiant Diomedes.Here Varius departs dejected from his weeping friends.
Hence we came to Rubi, fatigued: because we made a long journey, and it was rendered still more troublesome by the rains.Next day the weather was better, the road worse, even to the very walls of Barium that abounds in fish.In the next place Egnatia, which [seems to have] been built on troubled waters, gave us occasion for jests and laughter; for they wanted to persuade us, that at this sacred portal the incense melted without fire.The Jew Apella may believe this, not I.For I have learned [from Epicurus], that the gods dwell in a state of tranquillity; nor, if nature effect any wonder, that the anxious gods send it from the high canopy of the heavens.
Brundusium ends both my long journey, and my paper.
SATIRE VI.
Of true nobility
Not Maecenas, though of all the Lydians that ever inhabited the Tuscan territories, no one is of a nobler family than yourself; and though you have ancestors both on father's and mother's side, that in times past have had the command of mighty legions; do you, as the generality are wont, toss up your nose at obscure people, such as me, who has [only] a freed-man for my father: since you affirm that it is of no consequence of what parents any man is born, so that he be a man of merit.You persuade yourself, with truth, that before the dominions of Tullius, and the reign of one born a slave, frequently numbers of men descended from ancestors of no rank, have both lived as men of merit, and have been distinguished by the greatest honors: [while] on the other hand Laevinus, the descendant of that famous Valerius, by whose means Tarquinius Superbus was expelled from his kingdom, was not a farthing more esteemed [on account of his family, even] in the judgment of the people, with whose disposition you are well acquainted; who often foolishly bestow honors on the unworthy, and are from their stupidity slaves to a name: who are struck with admiration by inscriptions and statues.What is it fitting for us to do, who are far, very far removed from the vulgar [in our sentiments]?For grant it, that the people had rather confer a dignity on Laevinus than on Decius, who is a new man; and the censor Appius would expel me [the senate-house], because I was not sprung from a sire of distinction: and that too deservedly, inasmuch as I rested not content in my own condition.But glory drags in her dazzling car the obscure as closely fettered as those of nobler birth.What did it profit you, O Tullius, to resume the robe that you [were forced] to lay aside, and become a tribune [again]?Envy increased upon you, which had been less, it you had remained in a private station.For when any crazy fellow has laced the middle of his leg with the sable buskins, and has let flow the purple robe from his breast, he immediately hears: "Who is this man?Whose son is he?"Just as if there be any one, who labors under the same distemper as Barrus does, so that he is ambitious of being reckoned handsome; let him go where he will, he excites curiosity among the girls of inquiring into particulars; as what sort of face, leg, foot, teeth, hair, he has.Thus he who engages to his citizens to take care of the city, the empire, and Italy, and the sanctuaries of the gods, forces every mortal to be solicitous, and to ask from what sire he is descended, or whether he is base by the obscurity of his mother.What?do you, the son of a Syrus, a Dana, or a Dionysius, dare to cast down the citizens of Rome from the [Tarpeian] rock, or deliver them up to Cadmus [the executioner]?But, [you may say,] my colleague Novius sits below me by one degree: for he is only what my father was.And therefore do you esteem yourself a Paulus or a Messala?But he (Novius), if two hundred carriages and three funerals were to meet in the forum, could make noise enough to drown all their horns and trumpets: this [kind of merit] at least has its weight with us.
Now I return to myself, who am descended from a freed-man; whom every body nibbles at, as being descended from a freed-man.Now, because, Maecenas, I am a constant guest of yours; but formerly, because a Roman legion was under my command, as being a military tribune.This latter case is different from the former: for, though any person perhaps might justly envy me that post of honor, yet could he not do so with regard to your being my friend!especially as you are cautious to admit such as are worthy; and are far from having any sinister ambitious views.I can not reckon myself a lucky fellow on this account, as if it were by accident that I got you for my friend; for no kind of accident threw you in my way.That best of men, Virgil, long ago, and after him, Varius, told you what I was.When first I came into your presence, I spoke a few words in a broken manner (for childish bashfulness hindered me from speaking more); I did not tell you that I was the issue of an illustrious father: I did not [pretend] that I rode about the country on a Satureian horse, but plainly what I really was; you answer (as your custom is) a few words: I depart: and you re-invite me after the ninth month, and command me to be in the number of your friends.I esteem it a great thing that I pleased you, who distinguish probity from baseness, not by the illustriousness of a father, but by the purity of heart and feelings.
And yet if my disposition be culpable for a few faults, and those small ones, otherwise perfect (as if you should condemn moles scattered over a beautiful skin), if no one can justly lay to my charge avarice, nor sordidness, nor impure haunts; if, in fine (to speak in my own praise), I live undefiled, and innocent, and dear to my friends; my father was the cause of all this: who though a poor man on a lean farm, was unwilling to send me to a school under [the pedant] Flavius, where great boys, sprung from great centurions, having their satchels and tablets swung over their left arm, used to go with money in their hands the very day it was due; but had the spirit to bring me a child to Rome, to be taught those arts which any Roman knight and senator can teach his own children.So that, if any person had considered my dress, and the slaves who attended me in so populous a city, he would have concluded that those expenses were supplied to me out of some hereditary estate.He himself, of all others the most faithful guardian, was constantly about every one of my preceptors.Why should I multiply words?He preserved me chaste (which is the first honor or virtue) not only from every actual guilt, but likewise from [every] foul imputation, nor was he afraid lest any should turn it to his reproach, if I should come to follow a business attended with small profits, in capacity of an auctioneer, or (what he was himself) a tax-gatherer.Nor [had that been the case] should I have complained.On this account the more praise is due to him, and from me a greater degree of gratitude.As long as I am in my senses, I can never be ashamed of such a father as this, and therefore shall not apologize [for my birth], in the manner that numbers do, by affirming it to be no fault of theirs.My language and way of thinking is far different from such persons.For if nature were to make us from a certain term of years to go over our past time again, and [suffer us] to choose other parents, such as every man for ostentation's sake would wish for himself; I, content with my own, would not assume those that are honored with the ensigns and seats of state; [for which I should seem] a madman in the opinion of the mob, but in yours, I hope a man of sense; because I should be unwilling to sustain a troublesome burden, being by no means used to it.For I must [then] immediately set about acquiring a larger fortune, and more people must be complimented; and this and that companion must be taken along, so that I could neither take a jaunt into the country, or a journey by myself; more attendants and more horses must be fed; coaches must be drawn.Now, if I please, I can go as far as Tarentum on my bob-tail mule, whose loins the portmanteau galls with his weight, as does the horseman his shoulders.No one will lay to my charge such sordidness as he may, Tullius, to you, when five slaves follow you, a praetor, along the Tiburtian way, carrying a traveling kitchen, and a vessel of wine.Thus I live more comfortably, O illustrious senator, than you, and than thousands of others.Wherever I have a fancy, I walk by myself: I inquire the price of herbs and bread; I traverse the tricking circus, and the forum often in the evening: I stand listening among the fortune-tellers: thence I take myself home to a plate of onions, pulse, and pancakes.My supper is served up by three slaves; and a white stone slab supports two cups and a brimmer: near the salt-cellar stands a homely cruet with a little bowl, earthen-ware from Campania.Then I go to rest; by no means concerned that I must rise in the morning, and pay a visit to the statue of Marsyas, who denies that he is able to bear the look of the younger Novius.I lie a-bed to the fourth hour; after that I take a ramble, or having read or written what may amuse me in my privacy, I am anointed with oil, but not with such as the nasty Nacca, when he robs the lamps.But when the sun, become more violent, has reminded me to go to bathe, I avoid the Campus Martius and the game of hand-ball.Having dined in a temperate manner, just enough to hinder me from having an empty stomach, during the rest of the day I trifle in my own house.This is the life of those who are free from wretched and burthensome ambition: with such things as these I comfort myself, in a way to live more delightfully than if my grandfather had been a quaestor, and father and uncle too.
SATIRE VII.
He humorously describes a squabble betwixt Rupilius and Persius.
In what manner the mongrel Persius revenged the filth and venom of Rupilius, surnamed King, is I think known to all the blind men and barbers.This Persius, being a man of fortune, had very great business at Clazomenae, and, into the bargain, certain troublesome litigations with King; a hardened fellow, and one who was able to exceed even King in virulence; confident, blustering, of such a bitterness of speech, that he would outstrip the Sisennae and Barri, if ever so well equipped.
I return to King.After nothing could be settled betwixt them (for people among whom adverse war breaks out, are proportionably vexatious on the same account as they are brave.Thus between Hector, the son of Priam, and the high-spirited Achilles, the rage was of so capital a nature, that only the final destruction [one of them] could determine it; on no other account, than that valor in each of them was consummate.If discord sets two cowards to work; or if an engagement happens between two that are not of a match, as that of Diomed and the Lycian Glaucus; the worst man will walk off, [buying his peace] by voluntarily sending presents), when Brutus held as praetor the fertile Asia, this pair, Rupilius and Persius, encountered; in such a manner, that [the gladiators] Bacchius and Bithus were not better matched.Impetuous they hurry to the cause, each of them a fine sight.
Persius opens his case; and is laughed at by all the assembly; he extols Brutus, and extols the guard; he styles Brutus the sun of Asia, and his attendants he styles salutary stars, all except King; that he [he says,] came like that dog, the constellation hateful to husbandman: he poured along like a wintery flood, where the ax seldom comes.
Then, upon his running on in so smart and fluent a manner, the Praenestine [king] directs some witticisms squeezed from the vineyard, himself a hardy vine-dresser, never defeated, to whom the passenger had often been obliged to yield, bawling cuckoo with roaring voice.
But the Grecian Persius, as soon as he had been well sprinkled with Italian vinegar, bellows out: O Brutus, by the great gods I conjure you, who are accustomed to take off kings, why do you not dispatch this King?Believe me, this is a piece of work which of right belongs to you.
SATIRE VIII.
Priapus complains that the Esquilian mount is infested with the incantations of sorceresses
Formerly I was the trunk of a wild fig-tree, an useless log: when the artificer, in doubt whether he should make a stool or a Priapus of me, determined that I should be a god.Henceforward I became a god, the greatest terror of thieves and birds: for my right hand restrains thieves, and a bloody-looking pole stretched out from my frightful middle: but a reed fixed upon the crown of my head terrifies the mischievous birds, and hinders them from settling in these new gardens.Before this the fellow-slave bore dead corpses thrown out of their narrow cells to this place, in order to be deposited in paltry coffins.This place stood a common sepulcher for the miserable mob, for the buffoon Pantelabus, and Nomentanus the rake.Here a column assigned a thousand feet [of ground] in front, and three hundred toward the fields: that the burial-place should not descend to the heirs of the estate.Now one may live in the Esquiliae, [since it is made] a healthy place; and walk upon an open terrace, where lately the melancholy passengers beheld the ground frightful with white bones; though both the thieves and wild beasts accustomed to infest this place, do not occasion me so much care and trouble, as do [these hags], that turn people's minds by their incantations and drugs.These I can not by any means destroy nor hinder, but that they will gather bones and noxious herbs, as soon as the fleeting moon has shown her beauteous face.
I myself saw Canidia, with her sable garment tucked up, walk with bare feet and disheveled hair, yelling together with the elder Sagana.Paleness had rendered both of them horrible to behold.They began to claw up the earth with their nails, and to tear a black ewe-lamb to pieces with their teeth.The blood was poured into a ditch, that thence they might charm out the shades of the dead, ghosts that were to give them answers.There was a woolen effigy too, another of wax: the woolen one larger, which was to inflict punishment on the little one.The waxen stood in a suppliant posture, as ready to perish in a servile manner.One of the hags invokes Hecate, and the other fell Tisiphone.Then might you see serpents and infernal bitches wander about, and the moon with blushes hiding behind the lofty monuments, that she might not be a witness to these doings.But if I lie, even a tittle, may my head be contaminated with the white filth of ravens; and may Julius, and the effeminate Miss Pediatous, and the knave Voranus, come to water upon me, and befoul me.Why should I mention every particular?viz.in what manner, speaking alternately with Sagana, the ghosts uttered dismal and piercing shrieks; and how by stealth they laid in the earth a wolf's beard, with the teeth of a spotted snake; and how a great blaze flamed forth from the waxen image?And how I was shocked at the voices and actions of these two furies, a spectator however by no means incapable of revenge?For from my cleft body of fig-tree wood I uttered a loud noise with as great an explosion as a burst bladder.But they ran into the city: and with exceeding laughter and diversion might you have seen Canidia's artificial teeth, and Sagana's towering tete of false hair falling off, and the herbs, and the enchanted bracelets from her arm.
SATIRE IX.
He describes his sufferings from the loquacity of an impertinent fellow.
I was accidentally going along the Via Sacra, meditating on some trifle or other, as is my custom, and totally intent upon it.A certain person, known to me by name only, runs up; and, having seized my hand, "How do you do, my dearest fellow?""Tolerably well," say I, "as times go; and I wish you every thing you can desire."When he still followed me; "Would you any thing?"said I to him.But, "You know me," says he: "I am a man of learning.""Upon that account," says I: "you will have more of my esteem."Wanting sadly to get away from him, sometimes I walked on apace, now and then I stopped, and I whispered something to my boy.When the sweat ran down to the bottom of my ankles.O, said I to myself, Bolanus, how happy were you in a head-piece!Meanwhile he kept prating on any thing that came uppermost, praised the streets, the city; and, when I made him no answer; "You want terribly," said he, "to get away; I perceived it long ago; but you effect nothing.I shall still stick close to you; I shall follow you hence: Where are you at present bound for?""There is no need for your being carried so much about: I want to see a person, who is unknown to you: he lives a great way off across the Tiber, just by Caesar's gardens.""I have nothing to do, and I am not lazy; I will attend you thither."I hang down my ears like an ass of surly disposition, when a heavier load than ordinary is put upon his back.He begins again: "If I am tolerably acquainted with myself, you will not esteem Viscus or Varius as a friend, more than me; for who can write more verses, or in a shorter time than I?Who can move his limbs with softer grace [in the dance]?And then I sing, so that even Hermogenes may envy."
Here there was an opportunity of interrupting him."Have you a mother, [or any] relations that are interested in your welfare?""Not one have I; I have buried them all.""Happy they!now I remain.Dispatch me: for the fatal moment is at hand, which an old Sabine sorceress, having shaken her divining urn, foretold when I was a boy; 'This child, neither shall cruel poison, nor the hostile sword, nor pleurisy, nor cough, nor the crippling gout destroy: a babbler shall one day demolish him; if he be wise, let him avoid talkative people, as soon as he comes to man's estate.'"
One fourth of the day being now passed, we came to Vesta's temple; and, as good luck would have it, he was obliged to appear to his recognizance; which unless he did, he must have lost his cause."If you love me," said he, "step in here a little.""May I die!if I be either able to stand it out, or have any knowledge of the civil laws: and besides, I am in a hurry, you know whither.""I am in doubt what I shall do," said he; "whether desert you or my cause.""Me, I beg of you.""I will not do it," said he; and began to take the lead of me.I (as it is difficult to contend with one's master) follow him."How stands it with Maecenas and you?"Thus he begins his prate again."He is one of few intimates, and of a very wise way of thinking.No man ever made use of opportunity with more cleverness.You should have a powerful assistant, who could play an underpart, if you were disposed to recommend this man; may I perish, if you should not supplant all the rest!""We do not live there in the manner you imagine; there is not a house that is freer or more remote from evils of this nature.It is never of any disservice to me, that any particular person is wealthier or a better scholar than I am: every individual has his proper place.""You tell me a marvelous thing, scarcely credible.""But it is even so.""You the more inflame my desires to be near his person.""You need only be inclined to it: such is your merit, you will accomplish it: and he is capable of being won; and on that account the first access to him he makes difficult.""I will not be wanting to myself: I will corrupt his servants with presents; if I am excluded to-day, I will not desist; I will seek opportunities; I will meet him in the public streets; I will wait upon him home.Life allows nothing to mortals without great labor."While he was running on at this rate, lo!Fuscus Aristius comes up, a dear friend of mine, and one who knows the fellow well.We make a stop."Whence come you?whither are you going?"he asks and answers.I began to twitch him [by the elbow], and to take hold of his arms [that were affectedly] passive, nodding and distorting my eyes, that he might rescue me.Cruelly arch he laughs, and pretends not to take the hint: anger galled my liver."Certainly," [said I, "Fuscus,] you said that you wanted to communicate something to me in private.""I remember it very well; but will tell it you at a better opportunity: to-day is the thirtieth sabbath.Would you affront the circumcised Jews?"I reply, "I have no scruple [on that account].""But I have: I am something weaker, one of the multitude.You must forgive me: I will speak with you on another occasion."And has this sun arisen so disastrous upon me!The wicked rogue runs away, and leaves me under the knife.But by luck his adversary met him: and, "Whither are you going, you infamous fellow?"roars he with a loud voice: and, "Do you witness the arrest?"I assent.He hurries him into court: there is a great clamor on both sides, a mob from all parts.Thus Apollo preserved me.
SATIRE X.
He supports the judgment which he had before given of Lucilius, and intersperses some excellent precepts for the writing of Satire.
To be sure I did say, that the verses of Lucilius did not run smoothly.Who is so foolish an admirer of Lucilius, that he would not own this?But the same writer is applauded in the same Satire, on account of his having lashed the town with great humor.Nevertheless granting him this, I will not therefore give up the other [considerations]; for at that rate I might even admire the farces of Laberius, as fine poems. Hence it is by no means sufficient to make an auditor grim with laughter: and yet there is some degree of merit even in this.There is need of conciseness that the sentence may run, and not embarrass itself with verbiage, that overloads the sated ear; and sometimes a grave, frequently jocose style is necessary, supporting the character one while of the orator and [at another] of the poet, now and then that of a graceful rallier that curbs the force of his pleasantry and weakens it on purpose.For ridicule often decides matters of importance more effectually and in a better manner, than severity.Those poets by whom the ancient comedy was written, stood upon this [foundation], and in this are they worthy of imitation: whom neither the smooth-faced Hermogenes ever read, nor that baboon who is skilled in nothing but singing [the wanton compositions of] Calvus and Catullus.
But [Lucilius, say they,] did a great thing, when he intermixed Greek words with Latin.O late-learned dunces!What!do you think that arduous and admirable, which was done by Pitholeo the Rhodian?But [still they cry] the style elegantly composed of both tongues is the more pleasant, as if Falernian wine is mixed with Chian.When you make verses, I ask you this question; were you to undertake the difficult cause of the accused Petillius, would you (for instance), forgetful of your country and your father, while Pedius, Poplicola, and Corvinus sweat through their causes in Latin, choose to intermix words borrowed from abroad, like the double-tongued Canusinian.And as for myself, who was born on this side the water, when I was about making Greek verses; Romulus appearing to me after midnight, when dreams are true, forbade me in words to this effect; "You could not be guilty of more madness by carrying timber into a wood, than by desiring to throng in among the great crowds of Grecian writers."
While bombastical Alpinus murders Memnon, and while he deforms the muddy source of the Rhine, I amuse myself with these satires; which can neither be recited in the temple [of Apollo], as contesting for the prize when Tarpa presides as judge, nor can have a run over and over again represented in the theatres.You, O Fundanius, of all men breathing are the most capable of prattling tales in a comic vein, how an artful courtesan and a Davus impose upon an old Chremes.Pollio sings the actions of kings in iambic measure; the sublime Varias composes the manly epic, in a manner that no one can equal: to Virgil the Muses, delighting in rural scenes, have granted the delicate and the elegant.It was this kind [of satiric writing], the Aticinian Varro and some others having attempted it without success, in which I may have some slight merit, inferior to the inventor: nor would I presume to pull off the [laurel] crown placed upon his brow with great applause.
But I said that he flowed muddily, frequently indeed bearing along more things which ought to be taken away than left.Be it so; do you, who are a scholar, find no fault with any thing in mighty Homer, I pray?Does the facetious Lucilius make no alterations in the tragedies of Accius?Does not he ridicule many of Ennius' verses, which are too light for the gravity [of the subject]?When he speaks of himself by no means as superior to what he blames.What should hinder me likewise, when I am reading the works of Lucilius, from inquiring whether it be his [genius], or the difficult nature of his subject, that will not suffer his verses to be more finished, and to run more smoothly than if some one, thinking it sufficient to conclude a something of six feet, be fond of writing two hundred verses before he eats, and as many after supper?Such was the genius of the Tuscan Cassius, more impetuous than a rapid river; who, as it is reported, was burned [at the funeral pile] with his own books and papers.Let it be allowed, I say, that Lucilius was a humorous and polite writer; that he was also more correct than [Ennius], the author of a kind of poetry [not yet] well cultivated, nor attempted by the Greeks, and [more correct likewise] than the tribe of our old poets: but yet he, if he had been brought down by the Fates to this age of ours, would have retrenched a great deal from his writings: he would have pruned off every thing that transgressed the limits of perfection; and, in the composition of verses, would often have scratched his head, and bit his nails to the quick.
You that intend to write what is worthy to be read more than once, blot frequently: and take no-pains to make the multitude admire you, content with a few [judicious] readers.What, would you be such a fool as to be ambitious that your verses should be taught in petty schools?That is not my case.It is enough for me, that the knight [Maecenas] applauds: as the courageous actress, Arbuscula, expressed herself, in contempt of the rest of the audience, when she was hissed [by the populace].What, shall that grubworm Pantilius have any effect upon me?Or can it vex me, that Demetrius carps at me behind my back?or because the trifler Fannius, that hanger-on to Hermogenes Tigellius, attempts to hurt me?May Plotius and Varius, Maecenas and Virgil, Valgius and Octavius approve these Satires, and the excellent Fuscus likewise; and I could wish that both the Visci would join in their commendations: ambition apart, I may mention you, O Pollio: you also, Messala, together with your brother; and at the same time, you, Bibulus and Servius; and along with these you, candid Furnius; many others whom, though men of learning and my friends, I purposely omit—to whom I would wish these Satires, such as they are, may give satisfaction; and I should be chagrined, if they pleased in a degree below my expectation.You, Demetrius, and you, Tigellius, I bid lament among the forms of your female pupils.
Go, boy, and instantly annex this Satire to the end of my book.
THE SECOND BOOK OF THE SATIRES OF HORACE.
SATIRE I.
He supposes himself to consult with Trebatius, whether he should desist from writing satires, or not
There are some persons to whom I seem too severe in [the writing of] satire, and to carry it beyond proper bounds: another set are of opinion, that all I have written is nerveless, and that a thousand verses like mine may be spun out in a day.Trebatius, give me your advice, what shall I do.Be quiet.I should not make, you say, verses at all.I do say so.May I be hanged, if that would not be best: but I can not sleep.Let those, who want sound sleep, anointed swim thrice across the Tiber: and have their clay well moistened with wine over-night.Or, if such a great love of scribbling hurries you on, venture to celebrate the achievements of the invincible Caesar, certain of bearing off ample rewards for your pains.
Desirous I am, my good father, [to do this,] but my strength fails me, nor can any one describe the troops bristled with spears, nor the Gauls dying on their shivered darts, nor the wounded Parthian falling from his horse.Nevertheless you may describe him just and brave, as the wise Lucilius did Scipio.I will not be wanting to myself, when an opportunity presents itself: no verses of Horace's, unless well-timed, will gain the attention of Caesar; whom, [like a generous steed,] if you stroke awkwardly, he will kick upon you, being at all quarters on his guard.How much better would this be, than to wound with severe satire Pantolabus the buffoon, and the rake Nomentanus!when every body is afraid for himself, [lest he should be the next,] and hates you, though he is not meddled with.What shall I do?Milonius falls a dancing the moment he becomes light-headed and warm, and the candles appear multiplied.Castor delights in horsemanship: and he, who sprang from the same egg, in boxing.As many thousands of people [as there are in the world], so many different inclinations are there.It delights me to combine words in meter, after the manner of Lucilius, a better man than both of us.He long ago communicated his secrets to his books, as to faithful friends; never having recourse elsewhere, whether things went well or ill with him: whence it happens, that the whole life of this old [poet] is as open to the view, as if it had been painted en a votive tablet.His example I follow, though in doubt whether I am a Lucanian or an Apulian; for the Venusinian farmers plow upon the boundaries of both countries, who (as the ancient tradition has it) were sent, on the expulsion of the Samnites, for this purpose, that the enemy might not make incursions on the Romans, through a vacant [unguarded frontier]: or lest the Apulian nation, or the fierce Lucanian, should make an invasion.But this pen of mine shall not willfully attack any man breathing, and shall defend me like a sword that is sheathed in the scabbard which why should I attempt to draw, [while I am] safe from hostile villains?O Jupiter, father and sovereign, may my weapon laid aside wear away with rust, and may no one injure me, who am desirous of peace?But that man shall provoke me (I give notice, that it is better not to touch me) shall weep [his folly], and as a notorious character shall be sung through all the streets of Rome.
Cervius, when he is offended, threatens one with the laws and the [judiciary] urn; Canidia, Albutius' poison to those with whom she is at enmity, Turius [threatens] great damages, if you contest any thing while he is judge.How every animal terrifies those whom he suspects, with that in which he is most powerful, and how strong natural instinct commands this, thus infer with me.—The wolf attacks with his teeth, the bull with his horns.From what principle is this, if not a suggestion from within?Intrust that debauchee Scaeva with the custody of his ancient mother; his pious hand will commit no outrage.A wonder indeed!just as the wolf does not attack any one with his hoof, nor the bull with his teeth; but the deadly hemlock in the poisoned honey will take off the old dame.
That I may not be tedious, whether a placid old age awaits me, or whether death now hovers about me with his sable wings; rich or poor, at Rome or (if fortune should so order it) an exile abroad; whatever be the complexion of my life, I will write.O my child, I fear you can not be long, lived; and that some creature of the great ones will strike you with the cold of death.What?when Lucilius had the courage to be the first in composing verses after this manner, and to pull off that mask, by means of which each man strutted in public view with a fair outside, though foul within; was Laelius, and he who derived a well deserved title from the destruction of Carthage, offended at his wit, or were they hurt at Metellus being lashed, or Lupus covered over with his lampoons?But he took to task the heads of the people, and the people themselves, class by class; in short, he spared none but virtue and her friends.Yet, when the valorous Scipio, and the mild philosophical Laelius, had withdrawn themselves from the crowd and the public scene, they used to divert themselves with him, and joke in a free manner, while a few vegetables were boiled [for supper].Of whatever rank I am, though below the estate and wit of Lucilius, yet envy must be obliged to own that I have lived well with great men; and, wanting to fasten her tooth upon some weak part, will strike it against the solid: unless you, learned Trebatius, disapprove of any thing [I have said].For my part, I can not make any objection to this.But however, that forewarned you may be upon your guard, lest in ignorance of our sacred laws should bring you into trouble, [be sure of this] if any person shall make scandalous verses against a particular man, an action lies, and a sentence.Granted, if they are scandalous: but if a man composes good ones, and is praised by such a judge as Caesar?If a man barks only at him who deserves his invectives, while he himself is unblamable?The process will be canceled with laughter: and you, being dismissed, may depart in peace.
SATIRE II.
On Frugality
What and how great is the virtue to live on a little (this is no doctrine of mine, but what Ofellus the peasant, a philosopher without rules and of a home-spun wit, taught me), learn, my good friends, not among dishes and splendid tables; when the eye is dazzled with the vain glare, and the mind, intent upon false appearances, refuses [to admit] better things; but here, before dinner, discuss this point with me.Why so?I will inform you, if I can.Every corrupted judge examines badly the truth.After hunting the hare, or being wearied by an unruly horse, or (if the Roman exercise fatigues you, accustomed to act the Greek) whether the swift ball, while eagerness softens and prevents your perceiving the severity of the game, or quoits (smite the yielding air with the quoit) when exercise has worked of squeamishness, dry and hungry, [then let me see you] despise mean viands; and don't drink anything but Hymettian honey qualified with Falernian wine.Your butler is abroad, and the tempestuous sea preserves the fish by its wintery storms; bread and salt will sufficiently appease an importunate stomach.Whence do you think this happens?and how is it obtained?The consummate pleasure is not in the costly flavor, but in yourself.Do you seek for sauce by sweating.Neither oysters, nor scar, nor the far-fetched lagois, can give any pleasure to one bloated and pale through intemperance.Nevertheless, if a peacock were served up, I should hardly be able to prevent your gratifying the palate with that, rather than a pullet, since you are prejudiced by the vanities of things; because the scarce bird is bought with gold, and displays a fine sight with its painted tail, as if that were anything to the purpose."What; do you eat that plumage, which you extol?or has the bird the same beauty when dressed?Since however there is no difference in the meat, in one preferably to the other; it is manifest that you are imposed upon by the disparity of their appearances.Be it so.
By what gift are you able to distinguish, whether this lupus, that now opens its jaws before us, was taken in the Tiber, or in the sea?whether it was tossed between the bridges or at the mouth of the Tuscan river?Fool, you praise a mullet, that weighs three pounds; which you are obliged to cut into small pieces.Outward appearances lead you, I see.To what intent then do you contemn large lupuses?Because truly these are by nature bulky, and those very light.A hungry stomach seldom loathes common victuals.O that I could see a swingeing mullet extended on a swingeing dish!cries that gullet, which is fit for the voracious harpies themselves.But O [say I] ye southern blasts, be present to taint the delicacies of the [gluttons]: though the boar and turbot newly taken are rank, when surfeiting abundance provokes the sick stomach; and when the sated guttler prefers turnips and sharp elecampane.However, all [appearance of] poverty is not quite banished from the banquets of our nobles; for there is, even at this day, a place for paltry eggs and black olives.And it was not long ago, since the table of Gallonius, the auctioneer, was rendered infamous, by having a sturgeon, [served whole upon it].What?was the sea at that time less nutritive of turbots?The turbot was secure and the stork unmolested in her nest; till the praetorian [Sempronius], the inventor, first taught you [to eat them].Therefore, if any one were to give it out that roasted cormorants are delicious, the Roman youth, teachable in depravity, would acquiesce, in it.
In the judgment of Ofellus, a sordid way of living will differ widely from frugal simplicity.For it is to no purpose for you to shun that vice [of luxury]; if you perversely fly to the contrary extreme.Avidienus, to whom the nickname of Dog is applied with propriety, eats olives of five years old, and wild cornels, and can not bear to rack off his wine unless it be turned sour, and the smell of his oil you can not endure: which (though clothed in white he celebrates the wedding festival, his birthday, or any other festal days) he pours out himself by little and little from a horn cruet, that holds two pounds, upon his cabbage, [but at the same time] is lavish enough of his old vinegar.
What manner of living therefore shall the wise man put in practice, and which of these examples shall he copy?On one side the wolf presses on, and the dog on the other, as the saying is.A person will be accounted decent, if he offends not by sordidness, and is not despicable through either extreme of conduct.Such a man will not, after the example, of old Albutius, be savage while he assigns to his servants their respective offices; nor, like simple Naevius, will he offer greasy water to his company: for this too is a great fault.
Now learn what and how great benefits a temperate diet will bring along with it.In the first place, you will enjoy good health; for you may believe how detrimental a diversity of things is to any man, when you recollect that sort of food, which by its simplicity sat so well upon your stomach some time ago.But, when you have once mixed boiled and roast together, thrushes and shell-fish; the sweet juices will turn into bile, and a thick phlegm will bring a jarring upon the stomach.Do not you see, how pale each guest rises from a perplexing variety of dishes at an entertainment.Beside this, the body, overloaded with the debauch of yesterday, depresses the mind along with it, and dashes to the earth that portion of the divine spirit.Another man, as soon as he has taken a quick repast, and rendered up his limbs to repose, rises vigorous to the duties of his calling.However, he may sometimes have recourse to better cheer; whether the returning year shall bring on a festival, or if he have a mind to refresh his impaired body; and when years shall approach, and feeble age require to be used more tenderly.But as for you, if a troublesome habit of body, or creeping old age, should come upon you, what addition can be made to that soft indulgence, which you, now in youth and in health anticipate?
Our ancestors praised a boar when it was stale not because they had no noses; but with this view, I suppose, that a visitor coming later than ordinary [might partake of it], though a little musty, rather than the voracious master should devour it all himself while sweet.I wish that the primitive earth had produced me among such heroes as these.
Have you any regard for reputation, which affects the human ear more agreeably than music?Great turbots and dishes bring great disgrace along with them, together with expense.Add to this, that your relations and neighbors will be exasperated at you, while you will be at enmity with yourself and desirous of death in vain, since you will not in your poverty have three farthings left to purchase a rope withal.Trausius, you say, may with justice be called to account in such language as this; but I possess an ample revenue, and wealth sufficient for three potentates, Why then have you no better method of expending your superfluities?Why is any man, undeserving [of distressed circumstances], in want, while you abound: How comes it to pass, that the ancient temples of the gods are falling to ruin?Why do not you, wretch that you are, bestow something on your dear country, out of so vast a hoard?What, will matters always go well with you alone?O thou, that hereafter shalt be the great derision of thine enemies!which of the two shall depend upon himself in exigences with most certainty?He who has used his mind and high-swollen body to redundancies; or he who, contented with a little and provident for the future, like a Wise man in time of peace, shall make the necessary preparations for war?
That you may the more readily give credit to these things: I myself, when a little boy, took notice that this Ofellua did not use his unencumbered estate more profusely, than he does now it is reduced.You may see the sturdy husbandman laboring for hire in the land [once his own, but now] assigned [to others], with his cattle and children, talking to this effect; I never ventured to eat any thing on a work-day except pot-herbs, with a hock of smoke-dried bacon.And when a friend came to visit me after a long absence, or a neighbor, an acceptable guest to me resting from work on account of the rain, we lived well; not on fishes fetched from the city, but on a pullet and a kid: then a dried grape, and a nut, with a large fig, set off our second course.After this, it was our diversion to have no other regulation in our cups, save that against drinking to excess; then Ceres worshiped [with a libation], that the corn might arise in lofty stems, smoothed with wine the melancholy of the contracted brow.Let fortune rage, and stir up new tumults what can she do more to impair my estate?How much more savingly have either I lived, or how much less neatly have you gone, my children, since this new possessor came?For nature has appointed to be lord of this earthly property, neither him, nor me, nor any one.He drove us out: either iniquity or ignorance in the quirks of the law shall [do the same] him: certainly in the end his long lived heir shall expel him.Now this field under the denomination of Umbrenus', lately it was Ofellus', the perpetual property of no man; for it turns to my use one while, and by and by to that of another.Wherefore, live undaunted; and oppose gallant breasts against the strokes of adversity.
SATIRE III.
Damasippus, in a conversation with Horace, proves this paradox of the Stoic philosophy, that most men are actually mad
You write so seldom, as not to call for parchment four times in the year, busied in reforming your writings, yet are you angry with yourself, that indulging in wine and sleep you produce nothing worthy to be the subject of conversation.What will be the consequence?But you took refuge here, it seems, at the very celebration of the Saturnalia, out of sobriety.Dictate therefore something worthy of your promises; begin.There is nothing.The pens are found fault with to no purpose, and the harmless wall, which must have been built under the displeasure of gods and poets, suffers [to no end].But you had the look of one that had threatened many and excellent things, when once your villa had received you, free from employment, under its warm roof.To what purpose was it to stow Plato upon Menander?Eupolis, Archilochus?For what end did you bring abroad such companions?What?are you setting about appeasing envy by deserting virtue?Wretch, you will be despised.That guilty Siren, Sloth, must be avoided; or whatever acquisitions you have made in the better part of your life, must with equanimity be given up.May the gods and godnesses, O Damasippus, present you with a barber for your sound advice!But by what means did you get so well acquainted with me?Since all my fortunes were dissipated at the middle of the exchange, detached from all business of my own, I mind that of other people.For formerly I used to take a delight in inquiring, in what vase the crafty Sisyphus might have washed his feet; what was carved in an unworkmanlike manner, and what more roughly cast than it ought to be; being a connoisseur, I offered a hundred thousand sesterces for such a statue; I was the only man who knew how to purchase gardens and fine seats to the best advantage: whence the crowded ways gave me the surname of Mercurial.I know it well; and am amazed at your being cured of that disorder.Why a new disorder expelled the old one in a marvelous manner; as it is accustomed to do, when the pain of the afflicted side, or the head, is turned upon the stomach; as it is with a man in a lethargy, when he turns boxer, and attacks his physician.As long as you do nothing like this, be it even as you please.O my good friend, do not deceive yourself; you likewise are mad, and it is almost "fools all," if what Stertinius insists upon has any truth in it; from whom, being of a teachable disposition, I derived these admirable precepts, at the very time when, having given me consolation, he ordered me to cultivate a philosophical beard, and to return cheerfully from the Fabrician bridge.For when, my affairs being desperate, I had a mind to throw myself into the river, having covered my head [for that purpose], he fortunately was at my elbow; and [addressed me to this effect]: Take care, how do any thing unworthy of yourself; a false shame, says he, afflicts you, who dread to be esteemed a madman among madmen.For in the first place, I will inquire, what it is to be mad: and, if this distemper be in you exclusively, I will not add a single word, to prevent you from dying bravely.
The school and sect of Chrysippus deem every man mad, whom vicious folly or the ignorance of truth drives blindly forward. This definition takes in whole nations, this even great kings, the wise man [alone] excepted. Now learn, why all those, who have fixed the name of madman upon you, are as senseless as yourself. As in the woods, where a mistake makes people wander about from the proper path; one goes out of the way to the right, another to the left; there is the same blunder on both sides, only the illusion is in different directions: in this manner imagine yourself mad; so that he, who derides you, hangs his tail not one jot wiser than yourself. There is one species of folly, that dreads things not in the least formidable; insomuch that it will complain of fires, and rocks, and rivers opposing it in the open plain; there is another different from this, but not a whit more approaching to wisdom, that runs headlong through the midst of flames and floods. Let the loving mother, the virtuous sister, the father, the wife, together with all the relations [of a man possessed with this latter folly], cry out: "Here is a deep ditch; here is a prodigious rock; take care of yourself:" he would give no more attention, than did the drunken Fufius some time ago, when he overslept the character of Ilione, twelve hundred Catieni at the same time roaring out, O mother, I call you to my aidI will demonstrate to you, that the generality of all mankind are mad in the commission of some folly similar to this.
Damasippus is mad for purchasing antique statues: but is Damasippus' creditor in his senses?Well, suppose I should say to you: receive this, which you can never repay: will you be a madman, if you receive it; or would you be more absurd for rejecting a booty, which propitious Mercury offers?Take bond, like the banker Nerius, for ten thousand sesterces; it will not signify: add the forms of Cicuta, so versed in the knotty points of law: add a thousand obligations: yet this wicked Proteus will evade all these ties.When you shall drag him to justice, laughing as if his cheeks were none of his own; he will be transformed into a boar, sometimes into a bird, sometimes into a stone, and when he pleases Into a tree.If to conduct one's affairs badly be the part of a madman; and the reverse, that of a man well in his senses; brain of Perillius (believe me), who orders you [that sum of money], which you can never repay, is much more unsound [than yours].
Whoever grows pale with evil ambition, or the love of money: whoever is heated with luxury, or gloomy superstition, or any other disease of the mind, I command him to adjust his garment and attend: hither, all of ye, come near me in order, while I convince you that you are mad.
By far the largest portion of hellebore is to be administered to the covetous: I know not, whether reason does not consign all Anticyra to their use.The heirs of Staberius engraved the sum [which he left them] upon his tomb: unless they had acted in this manner, they were under an obligation to exhibit a hundred pair of gladiators to the people, beside an entertainment according to the direction of Arrius; and as much corn as is cut in Africa.Whether I have willed this rightly or wrongly, it was my will; be not severe against me, [cries the testator].I imagine the provident mind of Staberius foresaw this.What then did he moan, when he appointed by will that his heirs should engrave the sum of their patrimony upon his tomb-stone?As long as he lived, he deemed poverty a great vice, and nothing did he more industriously avoid: insomuch that, had he died less rich by one farthing, the more Iniquitous would he have appeared to himself.For every thing, virtue, fame, glory, divine and human affairs, are subservient to the attraction of riches; which whoever shall have accumulated, shall be illustrious, brave, just—What, wise too?Ay, and a king, and whatever else he pleases.This he was in hopes would greatly redound to his praise, as if it had been an acquisition of his virtue.In what respect did the Grecian Aristippus act like this; who ordered his slaves to throw away his gold in the midst of Libya; because, encumbered with the burden, they traveled too slowly?Which is the greater madman of these two?An example is nothing to the purpose, that decides one controversy by creating another.If any person were to buy lyres, and [when he had bought them] to stow them in one place; though neither addicted to the lyre nor to any one muse whatsoever: if a man were [to buy] paring-knives and lasts, and were no shoemaker; sails fit for navigation, and were averse to merchandizing; he every where deservedly be styled delirious, and out of his senses.How does he differ from these, who boards up cash and gold [and] knows not how to use them when accumulated, and is afraid to touch them as if they were consecrated?If any person before a great heap of corn should keep perpetual watch with a long club, and, though the owner of it, and hungry, should not dare to take a single grain from it; and should rather feed upon bitter leaves: if while a thousand hogsheads of Chian, or old Falernian, is stored up within (nay, that is nothing—three hundred thousand), he drink nothing, but what is mere sharp vinegars again—if, wanting but one year of eighty, he should lie upon straw, who has bed-clothes rotting in his chest, the food of worms and moths; he would seem mad, belike, but to few persons: because the greatest part of mankind labors, under the same malady.
Thou dotard, hateful to the gods, dost thou guard [these possessions], for fear of wanting thyself: to the end that thy son, or even the freedman thy heir, should guzzle it all up?For how little will each day deduct from your capital, if you begin to pour better oil upon your greens and your head, filthy with scurf not combed out?If any thing be a sufficiency, wherefore are you guilty of perjury [wherefore] do you rob, and plunder from all quarters?Are you in your senses?If you were to begin to pelt the populace with stones, and the slaves, which you purchased with your money; all the: very boys and girls will cry out that you are a madman.When you dispatch your wife with a rope, and your mother with poison, are you right in your head?Why not?You neither did this at Argos, nor slew your mother with the sword, as the mad Orestes did.What, do you imagine that he ran?mad after he had murdered his parent; and that he was not driven mad by the wicked Furies, before he warmed his sharp steel in his mother's throat?Nay, from the time that Orestes is deemed to have been of a dangerous disposition, he did nothing in fact that you can blame; he did not dare to offer violence with his sword to Pylades, nor to his sister Electra; he only gave ill language to both of them, by calling her a Fury, and him some other [opprobrious name], which, his violent choler suggested.
Opimius, poor amid silver and gold hoarded up within, who used to drink out of Campanian ware Veientine wine on holidays, and mere dregs on common days, was some time ago taken with a prodigious lethargy; insomuch that his heir was already scouring about his coffers and keys, in joy and triumph.His physician, a man of much dispatch and fidelity, raises him in this manner: he orders a table to be brought, and the bags of money to be poured out, and several persons to approach in order to count it: by this method he sets the man upon his legs again.And at the same time he addresses him to this effect.Unless you guard your money your ravenous heir will even now carry off these [treasures] of yours.What, while I am alive?That you may live, therefore, awake; do this.What would you have me do?Why your blood will fail you that are so much reduced, unless food and some great restorative be administered to your decaying stomach.Do you hesitate?come on; take this ptisan made of rice.How much did it cost?A trifle.How much then?Eight asses.Alas!what does it matter, whether I die of a disease, or by theft and rapine?
Who then is sound?He, who is not a fool.What is the covetous man?Both a fool and a madman.What—if a man be not covetous, is he immediately [to be deemed] sound?By no means.Why so, Stoic?I will tell you.Such a patient (suppose Craterus [the physician] said this) is not sick at the heart.Is he therefore well, and shall he get up?No, he will forbid that; because his side or his reins are harassed with an acute disease.[In like manner], such a man is not perjured, nor sordid; let him then sacrifice a hog to his propitious household gods.But he is ambitious and assuming.Let him make a voyage [then] to Anticyra.For what is the difference, whether you fling whatever you have into a gulf, or make no use of your acquisitions?
Servius Oppidius, rich in the possession of an ancient estate, is reported when dying to have divided two farms at Canusium between his two sons, and to have addressed the boys, called to his bed-side, [in the following manner]: When I saw you, Aulus, carry your playthings and nuts carelessly in your bosom, [and] to give them and game them away; you, Tiberius, count them, and anxious hide them in holes; I was afraid lest a madness of a different nature should possess you: lest you [Aulus], should follow the example of Nomentanus, you, [Tiberius], that of Cicuta.Wherefore each of you, entreated by our household gods, do you (Aulus) take care lest you lessen; you (Tiberius) lest you make that greater, which your father thinks and the purposes of nature determine to be sufficient.Further, lest glory should entice you, I will bind each of you by an oath: whichever of you shall be an aedile or a praetor, let him be excommunicated and accursed.Would you destroy your effects in [largesses of] peas, beans, and lupines, that you may stalk in the circus at large, or stand in a statue of brass, O madman, stripped of your paternal estate, stripped of your money?To the end, forsooth, that you may gain those applauses, which Agrippa gains, like a cunning fox imitating a generous lion?
O Agamemnon, why do you prohibit any one from burying Ajax?I am a king.I, a plebeian, make no further inquiry.And I command a just thing: but, if I seem unjust to any one, I permit you to speak your sentiments with impunity.Greatest of kings, may the gods grant that, after the taking of Troy, you may conduct your fleet safe home: may I then have the liberty to ask questions, and reply in my turn?Ask.Why does Ajax, the second hero after Achilles, rot [above ground], so often renowned for having saved the Grecians; that Priam and Priam's people may exult in his being unburied, by whose means so many youths have been deprived of their country's rites of sepulture.In his madness he killed a thousand sheep, crying out that he was destroying the famous Ulysses and Menelaus, together with me.When you at Aulis substituted your sweet daughter in the place of a heifer before the altar, and, O impious one, sprinkled her head with the salt cake; did you preserve soundness of mind?Why do you ask?What then did the mad Ajax do, when he slew the flock with his sword?He abstained from any violence to his wife and child, though he had imprecated many curses on the sons of Atreus: he neither hurt Teucer, nor even Ulysses himself.But I, out of prudence, appeased the gods with blood, that I might loose the ships detained on an adverse shore.Yes, madman!with your own blood.With my own [indeed], but I was not mad.Whoever shall form images foreign from reality, and confused in the tumult of impiety, will always be reckoned disturbed in mind: and it will not matter, whether he go wrong through folly or through rage.Is Ajax delirious, while he kills the harmless lambs?Are you right in your head, when you willfully commit a crime for empty titles?And is your heart pure, while it is swollen with the vice?If any person should take a delight to carry about with him in his sedan a pretty lambkin; and should provide clothes, should provide maids and gold for it, as for a daughter, should call it Rufa and Rufilla, and should destine it a wife for some stout husband; the praetor would take power from him being interdicted, and the management of him would devolve to his relations, that were in their senses.What, if a man devote his daughter instead of a dumb lambkin, is he right of mind?Never say it.Therefore, wherever there is a foolish depravity, there will be the height of madness.He who is wicked, will be frantic too: Bellona, who delights in bloodshed, has thundered about him, whom precarious fame has captivated.
Now, come on, arraign with me luxury and Nomentanus; for reason will evince that foolish spendthrifts are mad.This fellow, as soon as he received a thousand talents of patrimony, issues an order that the fishmonger, the fruiterer, the poulterer, the perfumer, and the impious gang of the Tuscan alley, sausage-maker, and buffoons, the whole shambles, together with [all] Velabrum, should come to his house in the morning.What was the consequence?They came in crowds.The pander makes a speech: "Whatever I, or whatever each of these has at home, believe it to be yours: and give your order for it either directly, or to-morrow."Hear what reply the considerate youth made: "You sleep booted in Lucanian snow, that I may feast on a boar: you sweep the wintry seas for fish: I am indolent, and unworthy to possess so much.Away with it: do you take for your share ten hundred thousand sesterces; you as much; you thrice the sum, from whose house your spouse runs, when called for, at midnight."The son of Aesopus, [the actor] (that he might, forsooth, swallow a million of sesterces at a draught), dissolved in vinegar a precious pearl, which he had taken from the ear of Metella: how much wiser was he [in doing this,] than if he had thrown the same into a rapid river, or the common sewer?The progeny of Quintius Arrius, an illustrious pair of brothers, twins in wickedness and trifling and the love of depravity, used to dine upon nightingales bought at a vast expense: to whom do these belong?Are they in their senses?Are they to be marked With chalk, or with charcoal?
If an [aged person] with a long beard should take a delight to build baby-houses, to yoke mice to a go-cart, to play at odd and even, to ride upon a long cane, madness must be his motive.If reason shall evince, that to be in love is a more childish thing than these; and that there is no difference whether you play the same games in the dust as when three years old, or whine in anxiety for the love of a harlot: I beg to know, if you will act as the reformed Polemon did of old?Will you lay aside those ensigns of your disease, your rollers, your mantle, your mufflers; as he in his cups is said to have privately torn the chaplet from his neck, after he was corrected by the speech of his fasting master?When you offer apples to an angry boy, he refuses them: here, take them, you little dog; he denies you: if you don't give them, he wants them.In what does an excluded lover differ [from such a boy]; when he argues with himself whether he should go or not to that very place whither he was returning without being sent for, and cleaves to the hated doors?"What shall I not go to her now, when she invites me of her own accord?or shall I rather think of putting an end to my pains?She has excluded me; she recalls me: shall I return?No, not if she would implore me."Observe the servant, not a little wiser: "O master, that which has neither moderation nor conduct, can not be guided by reason or method.In love these evils are inherent; war [one while], then peace again.If any one should endeavor to ascertain these things, that are various as the weather, and fluctuating by blind chance; he will make no more of it, than if he should set about raving by right reason and rule."What—when, picking the pippins from the Picenian apples, you rejoice if haply you have hit the vaulted roof; are you yourself?What—when you strike out faltering accents from your antiquated palate, how much wiser are you than [a child] that builds little houses?To the folly [of love] add bloodshed, and stir the fire with a sword.I ask you, when Marius lately, after he had stabbed Hellas, threw himself down a precipice, was he raving mad?Or will you absolve the man from the imputation of a disturbed mind, and condemn him for the crime, according to your custom, imposing, on things named that have an affinity in signification?
There was a certain freedman, who, an old man, ran about the streets in a morning fasting, with his hands washed, and prayed thus: "Snatch me alone from death" (adding some solemn vow), "me alone, for it is an easy matter for the gods:" this man was sound in both his ears and eyes; but his master, when he sold him, would except his understanding, unless he were fond of law-suits.This crowd too Chrysippus places in the fruitful family of Menenius.
O Jupiter, who givest and takest away great afflictions, (cries the mother of a boy, now lying sick abed for five months), if this cold quartan ague should leave the child, in the morning of that day on which you enjoy a fast, he shall stand naked in the Tiber.Should chance or the physician relieve the patient from his imminent danger, the infatuated mother will destroy [the boy] placed on the cold bank, and will bring back the fever.With what disorder of the mind is she stricken?Why, with a superstitious fear of the gods.
These arms Stertinius, the eighth of the wise men, gave to me, as to a friend, that for the future I might not be roughly accosted without avenging myself.Whosoever shall call me madman, shall hear as much from me [in return]; and shall learn to look back upon the bag that hangs behind him.
O Stoic, so may you, after your damage, sell all your merchandise the better: what folly (for, [it seems,] there are more kinds than one) do you think I am infatuated with?For to myself I seem sound.What—when mad Agave carries the amputated head of her unhappy son, does she then seem mad to herself?I allow myself a fool (let me yield to the truth) and a madman likewise: only declare this, with what distemper of mind you think me afflicted.Hear, then: in the first place you build; that is, though from top to bottom you are but of the two-foot size you imitate the tall: and you, the same person, laugh at the spirit and strut of Turbo in armor, too great for his [little] body: how are you less ridiculous than him?What—is it fitting that, in every thing Maecenas does, you, who are so very much unlike him and so much his inferior, should vie with him?The young ones of a frog being in her absence crushed by the foot of a calf, when one of them had made his escape, he told his mother what a huge beast had dashed his brethren to pieces.She began to ask, how big?Whether it were so great?puffing herself up.Greater by half.What, so big?when she had swelled herself more and more.If you should burst yourself, says he, you will not be equal to it.This image bears no great dissimilitude to you.Now add poems (that is, add oil to the fire), which if ever any man in his senses made, why so do you.I do not mention your horrid rage.At length, have done—your way of living beyond your fortune—confine yourself to your own affairs, Damasippus—those thousand passions for the fair, the young.Thou greater madman, at last, spare thy inferior.
SATIRE IV.
He ridicules the absurdity of one Catius, who placed the summit of human felicity in the culinary art
Whence, and whither, Catius?I have not time [to converse with you], being desirous of impressing on my memory some new precepts; such as excel Pythagoras, and him that was accused by Anytus, and the learned Plato.I acknowledge my offense, since I have interrupted you at so unlucky a juncture: but grant me your pardon, good sir, I beseech you.If any thing should have slipped you now, you will presently recollect it: whether this talent of yours be of nature, or of art, you are amazing in both.Nay, but I was anxious, how I might retain all [these precepts]; as being things of a delicate nature, and in a delicate style.Tell me the name of this man; and at the same time whether he is a Roman, or a foreigner?As I have them by heart, I will recite the precepts: the author shall be concealed.
Remember to serve up those eggs that are of an oblong make, as being of sweeter flavor and more nutritive than the round ones: for, being tough-shelled, they contain a male yelk.Cabbage that grows in dry lands, is sweeter than that about town: nothing is more insipid than a garden much watered.If a visitor should come unexpectedly upon you in the evening, lest the tough old hen prove disagreeable to his palate, you must learn to drown it in Falernian wine mixed [with water]: this will make it tender.The mushrooms that grow in meadows, are of the best kind: all others are dangerously trusted.That man shall spend his summers healthy who shall finish his dinners with mulberries black [with ripeness], which he shall have gathered from the tree before the sun becomes violent.Aufidius used to mix honey with strong Falernian injudiciously; because it is right to commit nothing to the empty veins, but what is emollient: you will, with more propriety, wash your stomach with soft mead.If your belly should be hard bound, the limpet and coarse cockles will remove obstructions, and leaves of the small sorrel; but not without Coan white wine.The increasing moons swell the lubricating shell-fish.But every sea is not productive of the exquisite sorts.The Lucrine muscle is better than the Baian murex: [The best] oysters come from the Circaean promontory; cray-fish from Misenum: the soft Tarentum plumes herself on her broad escalops.Let no one presumptuously arrogate to himself the science of banqueting, unless the nice doctrine of tastes has been previously considered by him with exact system.Nor is it enough to sweep away a parcel of fishes from the expensive stalls, [while he remains] ignorant for what sort stewed sauce is more proper, and what being roasted, the sated guest will presently replace himself on his elbow.Let the boar from Umbria, and that which has been fed with the acorns of the scarlet oak, bend the round dishes of him who dislikes all flabby meat: for the Laurentian boar, fattened with flags and reeds, is bad.The vineyard does not always afford the most eatable kids.A man of sense will be fond of the shoulders of a pregnant hare.What is the proper age and nature of fish and fowl, though inquired after, was never discovered before my palate.There are some, whose genius invents nothing but new kinds of pastry.To waste one's care upon one thing, is by no means sufficient; just as if any person should use all his endeavors for this only, that the wine be not bad; quite careless what oil he pours upon his fish.If you set out Massic wine in fair weather, should there be any thing thick in it, it will be attenuated by the nocturnal air, and the smell unfriendly to the nerves will go off: but, if filtrated through linen, it will lose its entire flavor.He, who skillfully mixes the Surrentine wine with Falernian lees, collects the sediment with a pigeon's egg: because the yelk sinks to the bottom, rolling down with it all the heterogeneous parts.You may rouse the jaded toper with roasted shrimps and African cockles; for lettuce after wine floats upon the soured stomach: by ham preferably, and by sausages, it craves to be restored to its appetite: nay, it will prefer every thing which is brought smoking hot from the nasty eating-houses.It is worth while to be acquainted with the two kinds of sauce.The simple consists of sweet oil; which it will be proper to mix with rich wine and pickle, but with no other pickle than that by which the Byzantine jar has been tainted.When this, mingled with shredded herbs, has boiled, and sprinkled with Corycian saffron, has stood, you shall over and above add what the pressed berry of the Venafran olive yields.The Tiburtian yield to the Picenian apples in juice, though they excel in look.The Venusian grape is proper for [preserving in] pots.The Albanian you had better harden in the smoke.I am found to be the first that served up this grape with apples in neat little side-plates, to be the first [likewise that served up] wine-lees and herring-brine, and white pepper finely mixed with black salt.It is an enormous fault to bestow three thousand sesterces on the fish-market, and then to cramp the roving fishes in a narrow dish.It causes a great nausea in the stomach, if even the slave touches the cup with greasy hands, while he licks up snacks, or if offensive grime has adhered to the ancient goblet.In trays, in mats, in sawdust, [that are so] cheap, what great expense can there be?But, if they are neglected, it is a heinous shame.What, should you sweep Mosaic pavements with a dirty broom made of palm, and throw Tyrian carpets over the unwashed furniture of your couch!forgetting, that by how much less care and expense these things are attended, so much the more justly may [the want of them] be censured, than of those things which can not be obtained but at the tables of the rich?
Learned Catius, entreated by our friendship and the gods, remember to introduce me to an audience [with this great man], whenever you shall go to him.For, though by your memory you relate every thing to me, yet as a relater you can not delight me in so high a degree.Add to this the countenance and deportment of the man; whom you, happy in having seen, do not much regard, because it has been your lot: but I have no small solicitude, that I may approach the distant fountain-heads, and imbibe the precepts of [such] a blessed life.
SATIRE V.
In a humorous dialogue between Ulysses and Tiresias, he exposes those arts which the fortune hunters make use of, in order to be appointed the heirs of rich old men
Beside what you have told me, O Tiresias, answer to this petition of mine: by what arts and expedients may I be able to repair my ruined fortunes—why do you laugh?Does it already seem little to you, who are practiced in deceit, to be brought back to Ithaca, and to behold [again] your family household gods?O you who never speak falsely to anyone, you see how naked and destitute I return home, according to your prophecy: nor is either my cellar, or my cattle there, unembezzled by the suitors [of Penelope].But birth and virtue, unless [attended] with substance, is viler than sea weed.
Since (circumlocutions apart) you are in dread of poverty hear by what means you may grow wealthy.If a thrush, or any [nice] thing for your own private [eating], shall be given you; it must wing way to that place, where shines a great fortune, the possessor being an old man: delicious apples, and whatever dainties your well-cultivated ground brings forth for you, let the rich man, as more to be reverenced than your household god, taste before him: and, though he be perjured, of no family, stained with his brother's blood, a runaway; if he desire it, do not refuse to go along with him, his companion on the outer side.What, shall I walk cheek by jole with a filthy Damas?I did not behave myself in that manner at Troy, contending always with the best.You must then be poor.I will command my sturdy soul to bear this evil; I have formerly endured even greater.Do thou, O prophet, tell me forthwith how I may amass riches and heaps of money.In troth I have told you, and tell you again.Use your craft to lie at catch for the last wills of old men: nor, if one or two cunning chaps escape by biting the bait off the hook, either lay aside hope, or quit the art, though disappointed in your aim.If an affair, either of little or great consequence, shall be contested at any time at the bar; whichever of the parties live wealthy without heirs, should he be a rogue, who daringly takes the law of a better man, be thou his advocate: despise the citizen, who is superior in reputation, and [the justness of] his cause, if at home he has a son or a fruitful wife.[Address him thus:] "Quintus, for instance, or Publius (delicate ears delight in the prefixed name), your virtue has made me your friend.I am acquainted with the precarious quirks of the law; I can plead causes.Any one shall sooner snatch my eyes from me, than he shall despise or defraud you of an empty nut.This is my care, that you lose nothing, that you be not made a jest of."Bid him go home, and make much of himself.Be his solicitor yourself: persevere, and be steadfast: whether the glaring dog-star shall cleave the infant statues; or Furius, destined with his greasy paunch, shall spue white snow over the wintery Alps.Do not you see (shall someone say, jogging the person that stands next to him by the elbow) how indefatigable he is, how serviceable to his friends, how acute?[By this means] more tunnies shall swim in, and your fish-ponds will increase.
Further, if any one in affluent circumstances has reared an ailing son, lest a too open complaisance to a single man should detect you, creep gradually into the hope [of succeeding him], and that you may be set down as second heir; and, if any casualty ahould dispatch the boy to Hades, you may come into the vacancy.This die seldom fails.Whoever delivers his will to you to read, be mindful to decline it, and push the parchment from you: [do it] however in such a manner, that you may catch with an oblique glance, what the first page intimates to be in the second clause: run over with a quick eye, whether you are sole heir, or co-heir with many.Sometimes a well-seasoned lawyer, risen from a Quinquevir, shall delude the gaping raven; and the fortune-hunter Nasica shall be laughed at by Coranus.
What, art thou in a [prophetic] raving; or dost thou play upon me designedly, by uttering obscurities?O son of Laertes, whatever I shall say will come to pass, or it will not: for the great Apollo gives me the power to divine.Then, if it is proper, relate what that tale means.
At that time when the youth dreaded by the Parthians, an offspring derived from the noble Aeneas, shall be mighty by land and sea; the tall daughter of Nasica, averse to pay the sum total of his debt, shall wed the stout Coranus.Then the son-in-law shall proceed thus: he shall deliver his will to his father-in-law, and entreat him to read it; Nasica will at length receive it, after it has been several times refused, and silently peruse it; and will find no other legacy left to him and his, except leave to lament.
To these [directions I have already given], I subjoin the [following]: if haply a cunning woman or a freedman have the management of an old driveler, join with them as an associate: praise them, that you may be praised in your absence.This too is of service; but to storm [the capital] itself excels this method by far.Shall he, a dotard, scribble wretched verses?Applaud them.Shall he be given to pleasure?Take care [you do not suffer him] to ask you: of your own accord complaisantly deliver up your Penelope to him, as preferable [to yourself].What—do you think so sober and so chaste a woman can be brought over, whom [so many] wooers could not divert from the right course.Because, forsooth, a parcel of young fellows came, who were too parsimonious to give a great price, nor so much desirous of an amorous intercourse, as of the kitchen.So far your Penelope is a good woman: who, had she once tasted of one old [doting gallant], and shared with you the profit, like a hound, will never be frighted away from the reeking skin [of the new killed game].
What I am going to tell you happened when I was an old man.A wicked hag at Thebes was, according to her will, carried forth in this manner: her heir bore her corpse, anointed with a large quantity of oil, upon his naked shoulders; with the intent that, if possible, she might escape from him even when dead: because, I imagine, he had pressed upon her too much when living.Be cautious in your addresses: neither be wanting in your pains, nor immoderately exuberant.By garrulity you will offend the splenetic and morose.You must not, however, be too silent.Be Davus in the play; and stand with your head on one side, much like one who is in great awe.Attack him with complaisance: if the air freshens, advise him carefully to cover up his precious head: disengage him from the crowd by opposing your shoulders to it: closely attach your ear to him if chatty.Is he immoderately fond of being praised?Pay him home, till he shall cry out, with his hands lifted up to heaven, "Enough:" and puff up the swelling bladder with tumid speeches.When he shall have [at last] released you from your long servitude and anxiety; and being certainly awake, you shall hear [this article in his will]?"Let Ulysses be heir to one fourth of my estate:" "is then my companion Damas now no more?where shall I find one so brave and so faithful?"Throw out [something of this kind] every now and then: and if you can a little, weep for him.It is fit to disguise your countenance, which [otherwise] would betray your joy.As for the monument, which is left to your own discretion, erect it without meanness.The neighborhood will commend the funeral handsomely performed.If haply any of your co-heirs, being advanced in years, should have a dangerous cough; whether he has a mind to be a purchaser of a farm or a house out of your share, tell him, you will [come to any terms he shall propose, and] make it over to him gladly for a trifling sum.But the Imperious Proserpine drags me hence.Live, and prosper.
SATIRE VI.
He sets the conveniences of a country retirement in opposition to the troubles of a life in town
This was [ever] among the number of my wishes: a portion of ground not over large, in which was a garden, and a fountain with a continual stream close to my house, and a little Woodland besides.The gods have done more abundantly, and better, for me [than this].It is well: O son of Maia, I ask nothing more save that you would render these donations lasting to me.If I have neither made my estate larger by bad means, nor am in a way to make it less by vice or misconduct; if I do not foolishly make any petition of this sort—"Oh that that neighboring angle, which now spoils the; regularity of my field, could be added!Oh that some accident would discover to me an urn [full] of money!as it did to him, who having found a treasure, bought that very ground he before tilled in the capacity of an hired servant, enriched by Hercules' being his friend;" if what I have at present satisfies me grateful, I supplicate you with this prayer: make my cattle fat for the use of their master, and every thing else, except my genius: and, as you are wont, be present as my chief guardian.Wherefore, when I have removed myself from the city to the mountains and my castle, (what can I polish, preferably to my satires and prosaic muse?)neither evil ambition destroys me, nor the heavy south wind, nor the sickly autumn, the gain of baleful Libitina.
Father of the morning, or Janus, if with more pleasure thou hearest thyself [called by that name], from whom men commence the toils of business, and of life (such is the will of the gods), be thou the beginning of my song.At Rome you hurry me away to be bail; "Away, dispatch, [you cry,] lest any one should be beforehand with you in doing that friendly office:" I must go, at all events, whether the north wind sweep the earth, or winter contracts the snowy day into a narrower circle.After this, having uttered in a clear and determinate manner [the legal form], which may be a detriment to me, I must bustle through the crowd; and must disoblige the tardy."What is your will, madman, and what are you about, impudent fellow?"So one accosts me with his passionate curses."You jostle every thing that is in your way, if with an appointment full in your mind you are away to Maecenas."This pleases me, and is like honey: I will not tell a lie.But by the time I reached the gloomy Esquiliae, a hundred affairs of other people's encompass me on every side: "Roscius begged that you would be with him at the court-house to-morrow before the second hour.""The secretaries requested you would remember, Quintus, to return to-day about an affair of public concern, and of great consequence.""Get Maecenas to put his signet to these tablets."Should one say, "I will endeavor at it:" "If you will, you can," adds he; and is more earnest.The seventh year approaching to the eighth is now elapsed, from the time that Maecenas began to reckon me in the number of his friends; only thus far, as one he would like to take along with him in his chariot, when he went a journey, and to whom he would trust such kind of trifles as these: "What is the hour?""Is Gallina, the Thracian, a match for [the gladiator] Syrus?""The cold morning air begins to pinch those that are ill provided against it;"—and such things-as are well enough intrusted to a leaky ear.For all this time, every day and hour, I have been more subjected to envy."Our son of fortune here, says every body, witnessed the shows in company with [Maecenas], and played with him in the Campus Martius."Does any disheartening report spread from the rostrum through the streets, whoever comes in my way consults me [concerning it]: "Good sir, have you (for you must know, since you approach nearer the gods) heard any thing relating to the Dacians?""Nothing at all for my part," [I reply]."How you ever are a sneerer!""But may all the gods torture me, if I know any thing of the matter.""What?will Caesar give the lands he promised the soldiers, in Sicily, or in Italy?"As I am swearing I know nothing about it, they wonder at me, [thinking] me, to be sure, a creature of profound and extraordinary secrecy.
Among things of this nature the day is wasted by me, mortified as I am, not without such wishes as these: O rural retirement, when shall I behold thee?and when shall it be in my power to pass through the pleasing oblivion of a life full of solicitude, one while with the books of the ancients, another while in sleep and leisure?O when shall the bean related to Pythagoras, and at the same time herbs well larded with fat bacon, be set before me?O evenings, and suppers fit for gods!with which I and my friends regale ourselves in the presence of my household gods; and feed my saucy slaves with viands, of which libations have been made.The guest, according to every one's inclination, takes off the glasses of different sizes, free from mad laws: whether one of a strong constitution chooses hearty bumpers; or another more joyously gets mellow with moderate ones.Then conversation arises, not concerning other people's villas and houses, nor whether Lepos dances well or not; but we debate on what is more to our purpose, and what it is pernicious not to know—whether men are made happier by riches or by virtue; or what leads us into intimacies, interest or moral rectitude; and what is the nature of good, and what its perfection.Meanwhile, my neighbor Cervius prates away old stories relative to the subject.For, if any one ignorantly commends the troublesome riches of Aurelius, he thus begins: "On a time a country-mouse is reported to have received a city-mouse into his poor cave, an old host, his old acquaintance; a blunt fellow and attentive to his acquisitions, yet so as he could [on occasion] enlarge his narrow soul in acts of hospitality.What need of many words?He neither grudged him the hoarded vetches, nor the long oats; and bringing in his mouth a dry plum, and nibbled scraps of bacon, presented them to him, being desirous by the variety of the supper to get the better of the daintiness of his guest, who hardly touched with his delicate tooth the several things: while the father of the family himself, extended on fresh straw, ate a spelt and darnel" leaving that which was better [for his guest].At length the citizen addressing him, 'Friend,' says he, 'what delight have you to live laboriously on the ridge of a rugged thicket?Will you not prefer men and the city to the savage woods?Take my advice, and go along with me: since mortal lives are allotted to all terrestrial animals, nor is there any escape from death, either for the great or the small.Wherefore, my good friend, while it is in your power, live happy in joyous circumstances: live mindful of how brief an existence you are.'Soon as these speeches had wrought upon the peasant, he leaps nimbly from his cave: thence they both pursue their intended journey, being desirous to steal under the city walls by night.And now the night possessed the middle region of the heavens, when each of them set foot in a gorgeous palace, where carpets dyed with crimson grain glittered upon ivory couches, and many baskets of a magnificent entertainment remained, which had yesterday been set by in baskets piled upon one another.After he had placed the peasant then, stretched at ease upon a splendid carpet; he bustles about like an adroit host, and keeps bringing up one dish close upon another, and with an affected civility performs all the ceremonies, first tasting of every thing he serves up.He, reclined, rejoices in the change of his situation, and acts the part of a boon companion in the good cheer: when on a sudden a prodigious rattling of the folding doors shook them both from their couches.Terrified they began to scamper all about the room, and more and more heartless to be in confusion, while the lofty house resounded with [the barking of] mastiff dogs; upon which, says the country-mouse, 'I have no desire for a life like this; and so farewell: my wood and cave, secure from surprises, shall with homely tares comfort me.'"
SATIRE VII.
One of Horace's slaves, making use of that freedom which was allowed them at the Saturnalia, rates his master in a droll and severe manner
I have a long while been attending [to you], and would fain speak a few words [in return; but, being] a slave, I am afraid.What, Davus?Yes, Davus, a faithful servant to his master and an honest one, at least sufficiently so: that is, for you to think his life in no danger.Well (since our ancestors would have it so), use the freedom of December speak on.
One part of mankind are fond of their vices with some constancy and adhere to their purpose: a considerable part fluctuates; one while embracing the right, another while liable to depravity.Priscus, frequently observed with three rings, sometimes with his left hand bare, lived so irregularly that he would change his robe every hour; from a magnificent edifice, he would on a sudden hide himself in a place, whence a decent freedman could scarcely come out in a decent manner; one while he would choose to lead the life of a rake at Rome, another while that of a teacher at Athens; born under the evil influence of every Vertumnus.That buffoon, Volanerius, when the deserved gout had crippled his fingers, maintained [a fellow] that he had hired at a daily price, who took up the dice and put them into a box for him: yet by how much more constant was he in his vice, by so much less wretched was he than the former person, who is now in difficulties by too loose, now by too tight a rein.
"Will you not tell to-day, you varlet, whither such wretched stuff as this tends?""Why, to you, I say.""In what respect to me, scoundrel?""You praise the happiness and manners of the ancient [Roman] people; and yet, if any god were on a sudden to reduce you to to them, you, the same man, would earnestly beg to be excused; either because you are not really of opinion that what you bawl about is right; or because you are irresolute in defending the right, and hesitate, in vain desirous to extract your foot from the mire.At Rome, you long for the country; when you are in the country, fickle, you extol the absent city to the skies.If haply you are invited out nowhere to supper, you praise your quiet dish of vegetables; and as if you ever go abroad upon compulsion, you think yourself so happy, and do so hug yourself, that you are obliged to drink out nowhere.Should Maecenas lay his commands on you to come late, at the first lighting up of the lamps, as his guest; 'Will nobody bring the oil with more expedition?Does any body hear?'You stutter with a mighty bellowing, and storm with rage.Milvius, and the buffoons [who expected to sup with you], depart, after having uttered curses not proper to be repeated.Any one may say, for I own [the truth], that I am easy to be seduced by my appetite; I snuff up my nose at a savory smell: I am weak, lazy; and, if you have a mind to add any thing else, I am a sot.But seeing you are as I am, and perhaps something worse, why do you willfully call me to an account as if you were the better man; and, with specious phrases, disguise your own vice?What, if you are found out to be a greater fool than me, who was purchased for five hundred drachmas?Forbear to terrify me with your looks; restrain your hand and your anger, while I relate to you what Crispinus' porter taught me.
"Another man's wife captivates you; a harlot, Davus: which of us sins more deservingly of the cross?When keen nature inflames me, any common wench that picks me up, dismisses me neither dishonored, nor caring whether a richer or a handsomer man enjoys her next.You, when you have cast off your ensigns of dignity, your equestrian ring and your Roman habit, turn out from a magistrate a wretched Dama, hiding with a cape your perfumed head: are you not really what you personate?You are introduced, apprehensive [of consequences]; and, as you are altercating With your passions, your bones shake with fear.What is the difference whether you go condemned [like a gladiator], to be galled with scourges, or slain with the sword; or be closed up in a filthy chest, where [the maid], concious of her mistress' crime, has stowed you?Has not the husband of the offending dame a just power over both; against the seducer even a juster?But she neither changes her dress, nor place, nor sins to that excess [which you do]; since the woman is in dread of you, nor gives any credit to you, though you profess to love her.You must go under the yoke knowingly, and put all your fortune, your life, and reputation, together with your limbs, into the power of an enraged husband.Have you escaped?I suppose, then, you will be afraid [for the future]; and, being warned, will be cautious.No, you will seek occasion when you may be again in terror, and again may be likely to perish.O so often a slave!What beast, when it has once escaped by breaking its toils, absurdly trusts itself to them again?You say, "I am no adulterer."Nor, by Hercules, am I a thief, when I wisely pass by the silver vases.Take away the danger, and vagrant nature will spring forth, when restraints are removed.Are you my superior, subjected as you are, to the dominion of so many things and persons, whom the praetor's rod, though placed on your head three or four times over, can never free from this wretched solicitude?Add, to what has been said above, a thing of no less weight; whether he be an underling, who obeys the master-slave (as it is your custom to affirm), or only a fellow-slave, what am I in respect of you?You, for example, who have the command of me, are in subjection to other things, and are led about, like a puppet movable by means of wires not its own.
"Who then is free?The wise man, who has dominion over himself; whom neither poverty, nor death, nor chains affright; brave in the checking of his appetites, and in contemning honors; and, perfect in himself, polished and round as a globe, so that nothing from without can retard, in consequence of its smoothness; against whom misfortune ever advances ineffectually.Can you, out of these, recognize any thing applicable to yourself?A woman demands five talents of you, plagues you, and after you are turned out of doors, bedews you with cold water: she calls you again.Rescue your neck from this vile yoke; come, say, I am free, I am free.You are not able: for an implacable master oppresses your mind, and claps the sharp spurs to your jaded appetite, and forces you on though reluctant.When you, mad one, quite languish at a picture by Pausias; how are you less to blame than I, when I admire the combats of Fulvius and Rutuba and Placideianus, with their bended knees, painted in crayons or charcoal, as if the men were actually engaged, and push and parry, moving their weapons?Davus is a scoundrel and a loiterer; but you have the character of an exquisite and expert connoisseur in antiquities.If I am allured by a smoking pasty, I am a good-for-nothing fellow: does your great virtue and soul resist delicate entertainments?Why is a tenderness for my belly too destructive for me?For my back pays for it.How do you come off with more impunity, since you hanker after such dainties as can not be had for a little expense?Then those delicacies, perpetually taken, pall upon the stomach; and your mistaken feet refuse to support your sickly body.Is that boy guilty, who by night pawns a stolen scraper for some grapes?Has he nothing servile about him, who in indulgence to his guts sells his estates?Add to this, that you yourself can not be an hour by yourself, nor dispose of your leisure in a right manner; and shun yourself as a fugitive and vagabond, one while endeavoring with wine, another while with sleep, to cheat care—in vain: for the gloomy companion presses upon you, and pursues you in your flight.
"Where can I get a stone?""What occasion is there for it?""Where some darts?""The man is either mad, or making verses.""If you do not take yourself away in an instant, you shall go [and make] a ninth laborer at my Sabine estate."
SATIRE VIII.
A smart description of a miser ridiculously acting the extravagant.
How did the entertainment of that happy fellow Nasidienus please you?for yesterday, as I was seeking to make you my guest, you were said to be drinking there from mid-day.[It pleased me so], that I never was happier in my life.Say (if it be not troublesome) what food first calmed your raging appetite.
In the first place, there was a Lucanian boar, taken when the gentle south wind blew, as the father of the entertainment affirmed; around it sharp rapes, lettuces, radishes; such things as provoke a languid appetite; skirrets, anchovies, dregs of Coan wine.These once removed, one slave, tucked high with a purple cloth, wiped the maple table, and a second gathered up whatever lay useless, and whatever could offend the guests; swarthy Hydaspes advances like an Attic maid with Ceres' sacred rites, bearing wines of Caecubum; Alcon brings those of Chios, undamaged by the sea.Here the master [cries], "Maecenas, if Alban or Falernian wine delight you more than those already brought, we have both."
Ill-fated riches!But, Fundanius, I am impatient to know, who were sharers in this feast where you fared so well.
I was highest, and next me was Viscus Thurinus, and below, if I remember, was Varius; with Servilius Balatro, Vibidius, whom Maecenas had brought along with him, unbidden guests.Above [Nasidienus] himself was Nomentanus, below him Porcius, ridiculous for swallowing whole cakes at once.Nomentanus [was present] for this purpose, that if any thing should chance to be unobserved, he might show it with his pointing finger.For the other company, we, I mean, eat [promiscuously] of fowls, oysters, fish, which had concealed in them a juice far different from the known: as presently appeared, when he reached to me the entrails of a plaice and of a turbot, such as had never been tasted before.After this he informed me that honey-apples were most ruddy when gathered under the waning moon.What difference this makes you will hear best from himself.Then [says] Vibidius to Balatro; "If we do not drink to his cost, we shall die in his debt;" and he calls for larger tumblers.A paleness changed the countenance of our host, who fears nothing so much as hard drinkers: either because they are more freely censorious; or because heating wines deafen the subtle [judgment of the] palate.Vibidius and Balatro, all following their example, pour whole casks into Alliphanians; the guests of the lowest couch did no hurt to the flagons.A lamprey is brought in, extended in a dish, in the midst of floating shrimps.Whereupon, "This," says the master, "was caught when pregnant; which, after having young, would have been less delicate in its flesh."For these a sauce is mixed up; with oil which the best cellar of Venafrum pressed, with pickle from the juices of the Iberian fish, with wine of five years old, but produced on this side the sea, while it is boiling (after it is boiled, the Chian wine suits it so well, that no other does better than it) with white pepper, and vinegar which, by being vitiated, turned sour the Methymnean grape.I first showed the way to stew in it the green rockets and bitter elecampane: Curtillus, [to stew in it] the sea-urchins unwashed, as being better than the pickle which the sea shell-fish yields.
In the mean time the suspended tapestry made a heavy downfall upon the dish, bringing along with it more black dust than the north wind ever raises on the plains of Campania.Having been fearful of something worse, as soon as we perceive there was no danger, we rise up.Rufus, hanging his head, began to weep, as if his son had come to an untimely death: what would have been the end, had not the discreet Nomentanus thus raised his friend!"Alas!O fortune, what god is more cruel to us than thou?How dost thou always take pleasure in sporting with human affairs!"Varius could scarcely smother a laugh with his napkin.Balatro, sneering at every thing, observed: "This is the condition of human life, and therefore a suitable glory will never answer your labor.Must you be rent and tortured with all manner of anxiety, that I may be entertained sumptuously; lest burned bread, lest ill-seasoned soup should be set before us; that all your slaves should wait, properly attired and neat?Add, besides, these accidents; if the hangings should tumble down, as just now, if the groom slipping with his foot should break a dish.But adversity is wont to disclose, prosperity to conceal, the abilities of a host as well as of a general."To this Nasidienus: "May the gods give you all the blessings, whatever you can pray for, you are so good a man and so civil a guest;" and calls for his sandals.Then on every couch you might see divided whispers buzzing in each secret ear.
I would not choose to have seen any theatrical entertainments sooner than these things.But come, recount what you laughed at next.While Vibidius is inquiring of the slaves, whether the flagon was also broken, because cups were not brought when he called for them; and while a laugh is continued on feigned pretences, Balatro seconding it; you Nasidienus, return with an altered countenance, as if to repair your ill-fortune by art.Then followed the slaves, bearing on a large charger the several limbs of a crane besprinkled with much salt, not without flour, and the liver of a white goose fed with fattening figs, and the wings of hares torn off, as a much daintier dish than if one eats them with the loins.Then we saw blackbirds also set before us with scorched breasts, and ring-doves without the rumps: delicious morsels!did not the master give us the history of their causes and natures: whom we in revenge fled from, so as to taste nothing at all; as if Canidia, more venomous than African serpents, had poisoned them with her breath.
THE FIRST BOOK OF THE EPISTLES OF HORACE.
EPISTLE I.
TO MAECENAS.
The poet renounces all verses of a ludicrous turn, and resolves to apply himself wholly to the study of philosophy, which teaches to bridle the desires, and to postpone every thing to virtue.
Maecenas, the subject of my earliest song, justly entitled to my latest, dost thou seek to engage me again in the old lists, having been tried sufficiently, and now presented with the foils?My age is not the same, nor is my genius.Veianius, his arms consecrated on a pillar of Hercules' temple, lives snugly retired in the country, that he may not from the extremity of the sandy amphitheater so often supplicate the people's favor.Some one seems frequently to ring in my purified ear: "Wisely in time dismiss the aged courser, lest, an object of derision, he miscarry at last, and break his wind."Now therefore I lay aside both verses, and all other sportive matters; my study and inquiry is after what is true and fitting, and I am wholly engaged in this: I lay up, and collect rules which I may be able hereafter to bring into use.And lest you should perchance ask under what leader, in what house [of philosophy], I enter myself a pupil: addicted to swear implicitly to the ipse-dixits of no particular master, wherever the weather drives me, I am carried a guest.One while I become active, and am plunged in the waves of state affairs, a maintainer and a rigid partisan of strict virtue; then again I relapse insensibly into Aristippus' maxims, and endeavor to adapt circumstances to myself, not myself to circumstances.As the night seems long to those with whom a mistress has broken her appointment, and the day slow to those who owe their labor; as the year moves lazy with minors, whom the harsh guardianship of their mothers confines; so all that time to me flows tedious and distasteful, which delays my hope and design of strenuously executing that which is of equal benefit to the poor and to the rich, which neglected will be of equal detriment to young and to old.It remains, that I conduct and comfort myself by these principles; your sight is not so piercing as that of Lynceus; you will not however therefore despise being anointed, if you are sore-eyed: nor because you despair of the muscles of the invincible Glycon, will you be careless of preserving your body from the knotty gout.There is some point to which we may reach, if we can go no further.Does your heart burn with avarice, and a wretched desire of more?Spells there are, and incantations, with which you may mitigate this pain, and rid yourself of a great part of the distemper.Do you swell with the love of praise?There are certain purgations which can restore you, a certain treatise, being perused thrice with purity of mind.The envious, the choleric, the indolent, the slave to wine, to women—none is so savage that he can not be tamed, if he will only lend a patient ear to discipline.
It is virtue, to fly vice; and the highest wisdom, to have lived free from folly.You see with what toil of mind and body you avoid those things which you believe to be the greatest evils, a small fortune and a shameful repulse.An active merchant, you run to the remotest Indies, fleeing poverty through sea, through rocks, through flames.And will you not learn, and hear, and be advised by one who is wiser, that you may no longer regard those things which you foolishly admire and wish for?What little champion of the villages and of the streets would scorn being crowned at the great Olympic games, who had the hopes and happy opportunity of victory without toil?Silver is less valuable than gold, gold than virtue."O citizens, citizens, money is to be sought first; virtue after riches:" this the highest Janus from the lowest inculcates; young men and old repeat these maxims, having their bags and account-books hung on the left arm.You have soul, have breeding, have eloquence and honor: yet if six or seven thousand sesterces be wanting to complete your four hundred thousand, you shall be a plebeian.But boys at play cry, "You shall be king, if you will do right."Let this be a [man's] brazen wall, to be conscious of no ill, to turn pale with no guilt.Tell me, pray is the Roscian law best, or the boy's song which offers the kingdom to them that do right, sung by the manly Curii and Camilli?Does he advise you best, who says, "Make a fortune; a fortune, if you can, honestly; if not, a fortune by any means"—that you may view from a nearer bench the tear-moving poems of Puppius; or he, who still animates and enables you to stand free and upright, a match for haughty fortune?
If now perchance the Roman people should ask me, why I do not enjoy the same sentiments with them, as [I do the same] porticoes, nor pursue or fly from whatever they admire or dislike; I will reply, as the cautious fox once answered the sick lion: "Because the foot-marks all looking toward you, and none from you, affright me."Thou art a monster with many heads.For what shall I follow, or whom?One set of men delight to farm the public revenues: there are some, who would inveigle covetous widows with sweet-meats and fruits, and insnare old men, whom they would send [like fish] into their ponds: the fortunes of many grow by concealed usury.But be it, that different men are engaged in different employments and pursuits: can the same persons continue an hour together approving the same things?If the man of wealth has said, "No bay in the world outshines delightful Baiae," the lake and the sea presently feel the eagerness of their impetuous master: to whom, if a vicious humor gives the omen, [he will cry,]—"to-morrow, workmen, ye shall convey hence your tools to Teanum."Has he in his hall the genial bed?He says nothing is preferable to, nothing better than a single life.If he has not, he swears the married only are happy.With what noose can I hold this Proteus, varying thus his forms?What does the poor man?Laugh [at him too]: is he not forever changing his garrets, beds, baths, barbers?He is as much surfeited in a hired boat, as the rich man is, whom his own galley conveys.
If I meet you with my hair cut by an uneven barber, you laugh [at me]: if I chance to have a ragged shirt under a handsome coat, or if my disproportioned gown fits me ill, you laugh.What [do you do], when my judgment contradicts itself?it despises what it before desired; seeks for that which lately it neglected; is all in a ferment, and is inconsistent in the whole tenor of life; pulls down, builds up, changes square to round.In this case, you think I am mad in the common way, and you do not laugh, nor believe that I stand in need of a physician, or of a guardian assigned by the praetor; though you are the patron of my affairs, and are disgusted at the ill-pared nail of a friend that depends upon you, that reveres you.
In a word, the wise man is inferior to Jupiter alone, is rich, free, honorable, handsome, lastly, king of kings; above all, he is sound, unless when phlegm is troublesome.
EPISTLE II.
TO LOLLIUS.
He prefers Homer to all the philosophers, as a moral writer, and advises an early cultivation of virtue
While you, great Lollius, declaim at Rome, I at Praeneste have perused over again the writer of the Trojan war; who teaches more clearly, and better than Chrysippus and Crantor, what is honorable, what shameful, what profitable, what not so.If nothing hinders you, hear why I have thus concluded.The story is which, on account of Paris's intrigue, Greece is stated to be wasted in a tedious war with the barbarians, contains the tumults of foolish princes and people.Antenor gives his opinion for cutting off the cause of the war.What does Paris?He can not be brought to comply, [though it be in order] that he may reign safe, and live happy.Nestor labors to compose the differences between Achilles and Agamemnon: love inflames one; rage both in common.The Greeks suffer for what their princes act foolishly.Within the walls of Ilium, and without, enormities are committed by sedition, treachery, injustice, and lust, and rage.
Again, to show what virtue and what wisdom can do, he has propounded Ulysses an instructive pattern: who, having subdued Troy, wisely got an insight into the constitutions and customs of many nations; and, while for himself and his associates he is contriving a return, endured many hardships on the spacious sea, not to be sunk by all the waves of adversity.You are well acquainted with the songs of the Sirens, and Circe's cups: of which, if he had foolishly and greedily drunk along with his attendants, he had been an ignominious and senseless slave under the command of a prostitute: he had lived a filthy dog, or a hog delighting in mire.
We are a mere number and born to consume the fruits of the earth; like Penelope's suitors, useless drones; like Alcinous' youth, employed above measure in pampering their bodies; whose glory was to sleep till mid-day, and to lull their cares to rest by the sound of the harp.Robbers rise by night, that they may cut men's throats; and will not you awake to save yourself?But, if you will not when you are in health, you will be forced to take exercise when you are in a dropsy; and unless before day you call for a book with a light, unless you brace your mind with study and honest employments, you will be kept awake and tormented with envy or with love.For why do you hasten to remove things that hurt your eyes, but if any thing gnaws your mind, defer the time of curing it from year to year?He has half the deed done, who has made a beginning.Boldly undertake the study of true wisdom: begin it forthwith.He who postpones the hour of living well, like the hind [in the fable], waits till [all the water in] the river be run off: whereas it flows, and will flow, ever rolling on.
Money is sought, and a wife fruitful in bearing children, and wild woodlands are reclaimed by the plow.[To what end all this?]He, that has got a competency, let him wish for no more.Not a house and farm, nor a heap of brass and gold, can remove fevers from the body of their sick master, or cares from his mind.The possessor must be well, if he thinks of enjoying the things which he has accumulated.To him that is a slave to desire or to fear, house and estate do just as much good as paintings to a sore-eyed person, fomentations to the gout, music to ears afflicted with collected matter.Unless the vessel be sweet, whatever you pour into it turns sour.Despise pleasures, pleasure bought with pain is hurtful.The covetous man is ever in want; set a certain limit to your wishes.The envious person wastes at the thriving condition of another: Sicilian tyrants never invented a greater torment than envy.He who will not curb his passion, will wish that undone which his grief and resentment suggested, while he violently plies his revenge with unsated rancor.Rage is a short madness.Rule your passion, which commands, if it do not obey; do you restrain it with a bridle, and with fetters.The groom forms the docile horse, while his neck is yet tender, to go the way which his rider directs him: the young hound, from the time that he barked at the deer's skin in the hall, campaigns it in the woods.Now, while you are young, with an untainted mind Imbibe instruction: now apply yourself to the best [masters of morality].A cask will long preserve the flavor, with which when new it was once impregnated.But if you lag behind, or vigorously push on before, I neither wait for the loiterer, nor strive to overtake those that precede me.
EPISTLE III.
TO JULIUS FLORUS.
After inquiring about Claudius Tiberius Nero, and some of his friends, he exhorts Florus to the study of philosophy
I long to know, Julius Florus, in what regions of the earth Claudius, the step-son of Augustus, is waging war.Do Thrace and Hebrus, bound with icy chains, or the narrow sea running between the neighboring towers, or Asia's fertile plains and hills detain you?What works is the studious train planning?In this too I am anxious—who takes upon himself to write the military achievements of Augustus?Who diffuses into distant ages his deeds in war and peace?What is Titius about, who shortly will be celebrated by every Roman tongue; who dreaded not to drink of the Pindaric spring, daring to disdain common waters and open streams: how does he do?How mindful is he of me?Does he employ himself to adapt Theban measures to the Latin lyre, under the direction of his muse?Or does he storm and swell in the pompous style of traffic art?What is my Celsus doing?He has been advised, and the advice is still often to be repeated, to acquire stock of his own, and forbear to touch whatever writings the Palatine Apollo has received: lest, if it chance that the flock of birds should some time or other come to demand their feathers, he, like the daw stripped of his stolen colors, be exposed to ridicule.What do you yourself undertake?What thyme are you busy hovering about?Your genius is not small, is not uncultivated nor inelegantly rough.Whether you edge your tongue for [pleading] causes, or whether you prepare to give counsel in the civil law, or whether you compose some lovely poem; you will bear off the first prize of the victorious ivy.If now you could quit the cold fomentations of care; whithersoever heavenly wisdom would lead you, you would go.Let us, both small and great, push forward in this work, in this pursuit: if to our country, if to ourselves we would live dear.
You must also write me word of this, whether Munatiua is of as much concern to you as he ought to be?Or whether the ill-patched reconciliation in vain closes, and is rent asunder again?But, whether hot blood, or inexperience in things, exasperates you, wild as coursers with unsubdued neck, in whatever place you live, too worthy to break the fraternal bond, a devoted heifer is feeding against your return.
EPISTLE IV.
TO ALBIUS TIBULLUS.
He declares his accomplishments; and, after proposing the thought of death, converts it into an occasion of pleasantry
Albius, thou candid critic of my discourses, what shall I say you are now doing in the country about Pedum?Writing what may excel the works of Cassius Parmensis; or sauntering silently among the healthful groves, concerning yourself about every thing worthy a wise and good man?You were not a body without a mind.The gods have given you a beautiful form, the gods [have given] you wealth, and the faculty of enjoying it.
What greater blessing could a nurse solicit for her beloved child, than that he might be wise, and able to express his sentiments; and that respect, reputation, health might happen to him in abundance, and decent living, with a never-failing purse?
In the midst of hope and care, in the midst of fears and disquietudes, think every day that shines upon you is the last.[Thus] the hour, which shall not be expected, will come upon you an agreeable addition.
When you have a mind to laugh, you shall see me fat and sleek with good keeping, a hog of Epicurus' herd.
EPISTLE V.
TO TORQUATUS.
He invites him to a frugal entertainment, but a cleanly and cheerful one
If you can repose yourself as my guest upon Archias' couches, and are not afraid to make a whole meal on all sorts of herbs from a moderate dish; I will expect you, Torquatus, at my house about sun set.You shall drink wine poured into the vessel in the second consulship of Taurus, produced between the fenny Minturnae and Petrinum of Sinuessa.If you have any thing better, send for it; or bring your commands.Bright shines my hearth, and my furniture is clean for you already.Dismiss airy hopes, and contests about riches, and Moschus' cause.To-morrow, a festal day on account of Caesar's birth, admits of indulgence and repose.We shall have free liberty to prolong the summer evening with friendly conversation.To what purpose have I fortune, if I may not use it?He that is sparing out of regard to his heir, and too niggardly, is next neighbor to a madman.I will begin to drink and scatter flowers, and I will endure even to be accounted foolish.What does not wine freely drunken enterprise?It discloses secrets; commands our hopes to be ratified; pushes the dastard on to the fight; removes the pressure from troubled minds; teaches the arts.Whom have not plentiful cups made eloquent?Whom have they not [made] free and easy under pinching poverty?
I, who am both the proper person and not unwilling, am charged to take care of these matters; that no dirty covering on the couch, no foul napkin contract your nose into wrinkles; and that the cup and the dish may show you to yourself; that there be no one to carry abroad what is said among faithful friends; that equals may meet and be joined with equals I will add to you Butra, and Septicius, and Sabinus, unless a better entertainment and a mistress more agreeable detain him.There is room also for many introductions: but goaty ramminess is offensive in over-crowded companies.
Do you write word, what number you would be; and setting aside business, through the back-door give the slip to your client who keeps guard in your court.
EPISTLE VI.
TO NUMICIUS.
That a wise man is in love with nothing but virtue
To admire nothing is almost the one and only thing, Numicius, which can make and keep a man happy.There are who view this sun, and the stars, and the seasons retiring at certain periods, untainted with any fear.What do you think of the gifts of the earth?What of the sea, that enriches the remote Arabians and Indians?What of scenical shows, the applause and favors of the kind Roman?In what manner do you think they are to be looked upon, with what apprehensions and countenance?He that dreads the reverse of these, admires them almost in the same way as he that desires them; fear alike disturbs both ways: an unforeseen turn of things equally terrifies each of them: let a man rejoice or grieve, desire or fear; what matters it—if, whatever he perceives better or worse than his expectations, with downcast look he be stupefied in mind and body?Let the wise man bear the name of fool, the just of unjust; if he pursue virtue itself beyond proper bounds.
Go now, look with transport upon silver, and antique marble, and brazen statues, and the arts: admire gems, and Tyrian dyes: rejoice, that a thousand eyes are fixed upon you while you speak: industrious repair early to the forum, late to your house, that Mutus may not reap more grain [than you] from his lands gained in dowry, and (unbecoming, since he sprung from meaner parents) that he may not be an object of admiration to you rather than you to him.Whatever is in the earth, time will bring forth into open day light; will bury and hide things, that now shine brightest.When Agrippa's portico, and the Appian way, shall have beheld you well known; still it remains for you to go where Numa and Ancus are arrived.If your side or your reins are afflicted with an acute disease, seek a remedy from the disease.Would you live happily?Who would not?If virtue alone can confer this, discarding pleasures, strenuously pursue it.Do you think virtue mere words, as a grove is trees?Be it your care that no other enter the port before you; that you lose not your traffic with Cibyra, with Bithynia.Let the round sum of a thousand talents be completed; as many more; further, let a third thousand succeed, and the part which may square the heap.For why, sovereign money gives a wife with a [large] portion, and credit, and friends, and family, and beauty; and [the goddesses], Persuasion and Venus, graced the well-moneyed man.The king of the Cappadocians, rich in slaves, is in want of coin; be not you like him.Lucullus, as they say, being asked if he could lend a hundred cloaks for the stage, "How can I so many?"said he: "yet I will see, and send as many as I have;" a little after he writes that he had five thousand cloaks in his house; they might take part of them, or all.It is a scanty house, where there are not many things superfluous, and which escape the owner's notice, and are the gain of pilfering slaves.If then wealth alone can make and keep a man happy, be first in beginning this work, be last in leaving it off.If appearances and popularity make a man fortunate, let as purchase a slave to dictate [to us] the names [of the citizens], to jog us on the left-side, and to make us stretch our hand over obstacles: "This man has much interest in the Fabian, that in the Veline tribe; this will give the fasces to any one, and, indefatigably active, snatch the curule ivory from whom he pleases; add [the names of] father, brother: according as the age of each is, so courteously adopt him.If he who feasts well, lives well; it is day, let us go whither our appetite leads us: let us fish, let us hunt, as did some time Gargilius: who ordered his toils, hunting-spears, slaves, early in the morning to pass through the crowded forum and the people: that one mule among many, in the sight of the people, might return loaded with a boar purchased with money.Let us bathe with an indigested and full-swollen stomach, forgetting what is becoming, what not; deserving to be enrolled among the citizens of Caere; like the depraved crew of Ulysses of Ithaca, to whom forbidden pleasure was dearer than their country.If, as Mimnermus thinks, nothing is pleasant without love and mirth, live in love and mirth.
Live: be happy.If you know of any thing preferable to these maxims, candidly communicate it: if not, with me make use of these.
EPISTLE VII.
TO MAECENAS.
He apologizes to Maecenas for his long absence from Rome; and acknowledges his favors to him in such a manner as to declare liberty preferable to all other blessings
Having promised you that I would be in the country but five days, false to my word, I am absent the whole of August.But, if you would have me live sound and in perfect health, the indulgence which you grant me, Maecenas, when I am ill, you will grant me [also] when I am afraid of being ill: while [the time of] the first figs, and the [autumnal] heat graces the undertaker with his black attendants; while every father and mother turn pale with fear for their children; and while over-acted diligence, and attendance at the forum, bring on fevers and unseal wills.But, if the winter shall scatter snow upon the Alban fields, your poet will go down to the seaside, and be careful of himself, and read bundled up; you, dear friend, he will revisit with the zephyrs, if you will give him leave, and with the first swallow.
You have made me rich, not in the manner in which the Calabrian host bids [his guest] eat of his pears."Eat, pray, sir.""I have had enough.""But take away with you what quantity you will.""You are very kind.""You will carry them no disagreeable presents to your little children.""I am as much obliged by your offer, as if I were sent away loaded.""As you please: you leave them to be devoured to-day by the hogs."The prodigal and fool gives away what he despises and hates; the reaping of favors like these has produced, and ever will produce, ungrateful men.A good and wise man professes himself ready to do kindness to the deserving; and yet is not ignorant, how true coins differ from lupines.I will also show myself deserving of the honor of being grateful.But if you would not have me depart any whither, you must restore my vigorous constitution, the black locks [that grew] on my narrow forehead: you must restore to me the power of talking pleasantly: you must restore to me the art of laughing with becoming ease, and whining over my liquor at the jilting of the wanton Cynara.
A thin field-mouse had by chance crept through a narrow cranny into a chest of grain; and, having feasted itself, in vain attempted to come out again, with its body now stuffed full.To which a weasel at a distance cries, "If you would escape thence, repair lean to the narrow hole which you entered lean."If I be addressed with this similitude, I resign all; neither do I, sated with delicacies, cry up the calm repose of the vulgar, nor would I change my liberty and ease for the riches of the Arabians.You have often commended me for being modest; when present you heard [from me the appellations of] king and father, nor am I a word more sparing in your absence.Try whether I can cheerfully restore what you have given me.Not amiss [answered] Telemachus, son of the patient Ulysses: "The country of Ithaca is not proper for horses, as being neither extended into champaign fields, nor abounding with much grass: Atrides, I will leave behind me your gifts, [which are] more proper for yourself."Small things best suit the small.No longer does imperial Rome please me, but unfrequented Tibur, and unwarlike Tarentum.
Philip, active and strong, and famed for pleading causes, while returning from his employment about the eighth hour, and now of a great age, complaining that the Carinae were too far distant from the forum; spied, as they say, a person clean shaven in a barber's empty shed, composedly paring his own nails with a knife."Demetrius," [says he,] (this slave dexterously received his master's orders,) "go inquire, and bring me word from what house, who he is, of what fortune, who is his father, or who is his patron."He goes, returns, and relates, that "he is by name, Vulteius Maena, an auctioneer, of small fortune, of a character perfectly unexceptionable, that he could upon occasion ply busily, and take his ease, and get, and spend; delighting in humble companions and a settled dwelling, and (after business ended) in the shows, and the Campus Martius."
"I would inquire of him himself all this, which you report; bid him come to sup with me."Maena can not believe it; he wonders silently within himself.Why many words?He answers, "It is kind.""Can he deny me?""The rascal denies, and disregards or dreads you."In the morning Philip comes unawares upon Vulteius, as he is selling brokery-goods to the tunic'd populace, and salutes him first.He pleads to Philip his employment, and the confinement of his business, in excuse for not having waited upon him in the morning; and afterward, for not seeing him first."Expect that I will excuse you on this condition, that you sup with me to-day.""As you please.""Then you will come after the ninth hour: now go: strenuously increase your stock."When they were come to supper, having discoursed of things of a public and private nature, at length he is dismissed to go to sleep.When he had often been seen, to repair like a fish to the concealed hook, in the morning a client, and now as a constant guest; he is desired to accompany [Philip] to his country-seat near the city, at the proclaiming of the Latin festivals.Mounted on horseback, he ceases not to cry up the Sabine fields and air.Philip sees it, and smiles: and, while he is seeking amusement and diversion for himself out of every thing, while he makes him a present of seven thousand sesterces, and promises to lend him seven thousand more: he persuades him to purchase a farm: he purchases one.That I may not detain you with a long story beyond what is necessary, from a smart cit he becomes a downright rustic, and prates of nothing but furrows and vineyards; prepares his elms; is ready to die with eager diligence, and grows old through a passionate desire of possessing.But when his sheep were lost by theft, his goats by distemper, his harvest deceived his hopes, his ox was killed with plowing; fretted with these losses, at midnight he snatches his nag, and in a passion makes his way to Philip's house.Whom as soon as Philip beheld, rough and unshaven, "Vulteius," said he, "you seem to me to be too laborious and earnest.""In truth, patron," replied he, "you would call me a wretch, if you would apply to me my true name.I beseech and conjure you then, by your genius and your right hand and your household gods, restore me to my former life."As soon as a man perceives, how much the things he has discarded excel those which he pursues, let him return in time, and resume those which he relinquished.
It is a truth, that every one ought to measure himself by his own proper foot and standard.
EPISTLE VIII.
TO CELSUS ALBINOVANUS.
That he was neither well in body, nor in mind; that Celtics should bear his prosperity with moderation
My muse at my request, give joy and wish success to Celsus Albinovanus, the attendant and the secretary of Nero.If he shall inquire, what I am doing, say that I, though promising many and fine things, yet live neither well [according to the rules of strict philosophy], nor agreeably; not because the hail has crushed my vines, and the heat has nipped my olives; nor because my herds are distempered in distant pastures; but because, less sound in my mind than in my whole body, I will hear nothing, learn nothing which may relieve me, diseased as I am; that I am displeased with my faithful physicians, am angry with my friends for being industrious to rouse me from a fatal lethargy; that I pursue things which have done me hurt, avoid things which I am persuaded would be of service, inconstant as the wind, at Rome am in love with Tibur, at Tibur with Rome.After this, inquire how he does; how he manages his business and himself; how he pleases the young prince and his attendants.If he shall say, well; first congratulate him, then remember to whisper this admonition in his ears: As you, Celsus, bear your fortunes, so will we bear you.
EPISTLE IX.
TO CLAUDIUS TIBERIUS NERO.
He recommends Septimius to him
Of all the men in the world Septimius surely, O Claudius, knows how much regard you have for me.For when he requests, and by his entreaties in a manner compels me, to undertake to recommend and introduce him to you, as one worthy of the confidence and the household of Nero, who is wont to choose deserving objects, thinking I discharge the office of an intimate friend; he sees and knows better than myself what I can do.I said a great deal, indeed, in order that I might come off excused: but I was afraid, lest I should be suspected to pretend my interest was less than it is, to be a dissembler of my own power, and ready to serve myself alone.So, avoiding the reproach of a greater fault, I have put in for the prize of town-bred confidence.If then you approve of modesty being superseded at the pressing entreaties of a friend, enrol this person among your retinue, and believe him to be brave and good.
EPISTLE X.
TO ARISTIUS FUSCUS.
He praises a country before a city life, as more agreeable to nature, and more friendly to liberty
We, who love the country, salute Fuscus that loves the town; in this point alone [being] much unlike, but in other things almost twins, of brotherly sentiments: whatever one denies the other too [denies]; we assent together: like old and constant doves, you keep the nest; I praise the rivulets, the rocks overgrown with moss, and the groves of the delightful country.Do you ask why?I live and reign, as soon as I have quitted those things which you extol to the skies with joyful applause.And, like a priest's, fugitive slave I reject luscious wafers, I desire plain bread, which is more agreeable now than honied cakes.
If we must live suitably to nature, and a plot of ground is to be first sought to raise a house upon, do you know any place preferable to the blissful country?Is there any spot where the winters are more temperate?where a more agreeable breeze moderates the rage of the Dog-star, and the season of the Lion, when once that furious sign has received the scorching sun?Is there a place where envious care less disturbs our slumbers?Is the grass inferior in smell or beauty to the Libyan pebbles?Is the water, which strives to burst the lead in the streets, purer than that which trembles in murmurs down its sloping channel?Why, trees are nursed along the variegated columns [of the city]; and that house is commended, which has a prospect of distant fields.You may drive out nature with a fork, yet still she will return, and, insensibly victorious, will break through [men's] improper disgusts.
Not he who is unable to compare the fleeces that drink up the dye of Aquinum with the Sidonian purple, will receive a more certain damage and nearer to his marrow, than he who shall not be able to distinguish false from true.He who has been overjoyed by prosperity, will be shocked by a change of circumstances.If you admire any thing [greatly], you will be unwilling to resign it.Avoid great things; under a mean roof one may outstrip kings, and the favorites of kings, in one's life.
The stag, superior in fight, drove the horse from the common pasture, till the latter, worsted in the long contest, implored the aid of man and received the bridle; but after he had parted an exulting conqueror from his enemy, he could not shake the rider from his back, nor the bit from his mouth.So he who, afraid of poverty, forfeits his liberty, more valuable than mines, avaricious wretch, shall carry a master, and shall eternally be a slave, for not knowing how to use a little.When a man's condition does not suit him, it will be as a shoe at any time; which, if too big for his foot, will throw him down; if too little, will pinch him.[If you are] cheerful under your lot, Aristius, you will live wisely; nor shall you let me go uncorrected, if I appear to scrape together more than enough and not have done.Accumulated money is the master or slave of each owner, and ought rather to follow than to lead the twisted rope.
These I dictated to thee behind the moldering temple of Vacuna; in all other things happy, except that thou wast not with me.
EPISTLE XI.
TO BULLATIUS.
Endeavoring to recall him back to Rome from Asia, whither he had retreated through his weariness of the civil wars, he advises him to ease the disquietude of his mind not by the length of his journey, but by forming his mind into a right disposition
What, Bullatius, do you think of Chios, and of celebrated Lesbos?What of neat Samos?What of Sardis, the royal residence of Croesus?What of Smyrna, and Colophon?Are they greater or less than their fame?Are they all contemptible in comparison of the Campus Martius and the river Tiber?Does one of Attalus' cities enter into your wish?Or do you admire Lebedus, through a surfeit of the sea and of traveling?You know what Lebedus is; it is a more unfrequented town than Gabii and Fidenae; yet there would I be willing to live; and, forgetful of my friends and forgotten by them, view from land Neptune raging at a distance.But neither he who comes to Rome from Capua, bespattered with rain and mire, would wish to live in an inn; nor does he, who has contracted a cold, cry up stoves and bagnios as completely furnishing a happy life: nor, if the violent south wind has tossed you in the deep, will you therefore sell your ship on the other side of the Aegean Sea.On a man sound in mind Rhodes and beautiful Mitylene have such an effect, as a thick cloak at the summer solstice, thin drawers in snowy weather, [bathing in] the Tiber in winter, a fire in the month of August.While it is permitted, and fortune preserves a benign aspect, let absent Samos, and Chios, and Rhodes, be commended by you here at Rome.Whatever prosperous; hour Providence bestows upon you, receive it with a thankful hand: and defer not [the enjoyment of] the comforts of life, till a year be at an end; that in whatever place you are, you may say you have lived with satisfaction.For if reason and discretion, not a place that commands a prospect of the wide-extended sea, remove our cares; they change their climate, not their disposition, who run beyond the sea: a busy idleness harrasses us: by ships and by chariots we seek to live happily.What you seek is here [at home], is at Ulubrae, if a just temper of mind is not wanting to you.
EPISTLE XII.
TO ICCIUS.
Leader the appearance of praising the man's parsimony, he archly ridicules it; introduces Grosphus to him, and concludes with a few articles of news concerning the Roman affairs
O Iccius, if you rightly enjoy the Sicilian products, which you collect for Agrippa, it is not possible that greater affluence can be given you by Jove.Away with complaints!for that man is by no means poor, who has the use or everything, he wants.If it is well with your belly, your back, and your feet, regal wealth can add nothing greater.If perchance abstemious amid profusion you live upon salad and shell-fish, you will continue to live in such a manner, even if presently fortune shall flow upon you in a river of gold; either because money can not change the natural disposition, or because it is your opinion that all things are inferior to virtue alone.Can we wonder that cattle feed upon the meadows and corn-fields of Democritus, while his active soul is abroad [traveling] without his body?When you, amid such great impurity and infection of profit, have no taste for any thing trivial, but still mind [only] sublime things: what causes restrain the sea, what rules the year, whether the stars spontaneously or by direction wander about and are erratic, what throws obscurity on the moon, and what brings out her orb, what is the intention and power of the jarring harmony of things, whether Empedocles or the clever Stertinius be in the wrong.
However, whether you murder fishes, or onions and garlic, receive Pompeius Grosphus; and, if he asks any favor, grant it him frankly: Grosphus will desire nothing but what is right and just.The proceeds of friendship are cheap, when good men want any thing.
But that you may not be ignorant in what situation the Roman affairs are; the Cantabrians have fallen by the valor of Agrippa, the Armenians by that of Claudius Nero: Phraates has, suppliant on his knees, admitted the laws and power of Caesar.Golden plenty has poured out the fruits of Italy from a full horn.
EPISTLE XIII.
TO VINNIUS ASINA.
Horace cautions him to present his poems to Augustus at a proper opportunity, and with due decorum
As on your setting out I frequently and fully gave you instructions, Vinnius, that you would present these volumes to Augustus sealed up if he shall be in health, if in spirits, finally, if he shall ask for them: do not offend out of zeal to me, and industriously bring an odium upon my books [by being] an agent of violent officiousness.If haply the heavy load of my paper should gall you, cast it from you, rather than throw down your pack in a rough manner where you are directed to carry it, and turn your paternal name of Asina into a jest, and make yourself a common story.Make use of your vigor over the hills, the rivers, and the fens.As soon as you have achieved your enterprise, and arrived there, you must keep your burden in this position; lest you happen to carry my bundle of books under your arm, as a clown does a lamb, or as drunken Pyrrhia [in the play does] the balls of pilfered wool, or as a tribe-guest his slippers with his fuddling-cap.You must not tell publicly, how you sweated with carrying those verses, which may detain the eyes and ears of Caesar.Solicited with much entreaty, do your best.Finally, get you gone, farewell: take care you do not stumble, and break my orders.
EPISTLE XIV.
TO HIS STEWARD.
He upbraids his levity for contemning a country life, which had been his choice, and being eager to return to Rome
Steward of my woodlands and little farm that restores me to myself, which you despise, [though formerly] inhabited by five families, and wont to send five good senators to Varia: let us try, whether I with more fortitude pluck the thorns out of my mind, or you out of my ground: and whether Horace or his estate be in a better condition.
Though my affection and solicitude for Lamia, mourning for his brother, lamenting inconsolably for his brother's loss, detain me; nevertheless my heart and soul carry me thither and long to break through those barriers that obstruct my way.I pronounce him the happy man who dwells in the country, you him [who lives] in the city.He to whom his neighbor's lot is agreeable, must of consequence dislike his own.Each of us is a fool for unjustly blaming the innocent place.The mind is in fault, which never escapes from itself.When you were a drudge at every one's beck, you tacitly prayed for the country: and now, [being appointed] my steward, you wish for the city, the shows, and the baths.You know I am consistent with myself, and loth to go, whenever disagreeable business drags me to Rome.We are not admirers of the same things: henoe you and I disagree.For what you reckon desert and inhospitable wilds, he who is of my way of thinking calls delightful places; and dislikes what you esteem pleasant.The bagnio, I perceive, and the greasy tavern raise your inclination for the city: and this, because my little spot will sooner yield frankincense and pepper than grapes; nor is there a tavern near, which can supply you with wine; nor a minstrel harlot, to whose thrumming you may dance, cumbersome to the ground: and yet you exercise with plowshares the fallows that have been a long while untouched, you take due care of the ox when unyoked, and give him his fill with leaves stripped [from the boughs].The sluice gives an additional trouble to an idle fellow, which, if a shower fall, must be taught by many a mound to spare the sunny meadow.
Come now, attend to what hinders our agreeing.[Me,] whom fine garments and dressed locks adorned, whom you know to have pleased venal Cynara without a present, whom [you have seen] quaff flowing Falernian from noon—a short supper [now] delights, and a nap upon the green turf by the stream side; nor is it a shame to have been gay, but not to break off that gayety.There there is no one who reduces my possessions with envious eye, nor poisons them with obscure malice and biting slander; the neighbors smile at me removing clods and stones.You had rather be munching your daily allowance with the slaves in town; you earnestly pray to be of the number of these: [while my] cunning foot-boy envies you the use of the firing, the flocks and the garden.The lazy ox wishes for the horse's trappings: the horse wishes to go to plow.But I shall be of opinion, that each of them ought contentedly to exercise that art which he understands.
EPISTLE XV.
TO C.NEUMONIUS VALA.
Preparing to go to the baths either at Velia or Salernum, he inquires after the healthfulness and agreeableness of the places
It is your part, Vala, to write to me (and mine to give credit to your information) what sort of a winter is it at Velia, what the air at Salernum, what kind of inhabitants the country consists of, and how the road is (for Antonius Musa [pronounces] Baiae to be of no service to me; yet makes me obnoxious to the place, when I am bathed in cold water even in the midst of the frost [by his prescription].In truth the village murmers at their myrtle-groves being deserted and the sulphurous waters, said to expel lingering disorders from the nerves, despised; envying those invalids, who have the courage to expose their head and breast to the Clusian springs, and retire to Gabii and [such] cold countries.My course must be altered, and my horse driven beyond his accustomed stages.Whither are you going?will the angry rider say, pulling in the left-hand rein, I am not bound for Cumae or Baiae:—but the horse's ear is in the bit.)[You must inform me likewise] which of the two people is supported by the greatest abundance of corn; whether they drink rainwater collected [in reservoirs], or from perennial wells of never-failing water (for as to the wine of that part I give myself no trouble; at my country-seat I can dispense and bear with any thing: but when I have arrived at a sea-port, I insist upon that which is generous and mellow, such as may drive away my cares, such as may flow into my veins and animal spirits with a rich supply of hope, such as may supply me with words, such as may make me appear young to my Lucanian mistress).Which tract of land produces most hares, which boars: which seas harbor the most fishes and sea-urchins, that I may be able to return home thence in good case, and like a Phaeacian.
When Maenius, having bravely made away with his paternal and maternal estates, began to be accounted a merry fellow—a vagabond droll, who had no certain place of living; who, when dinnerless, could not distinguish a fellow-citizen from an enemy; unmerciful in forging any scandal against any person; the pest, and hurricane, and gulf of the market; whatever he could get, he gave to his greedy gut.This fellow, when he had extorted little or nothing from the favorers of his iniquity, or those that dreaded it, would eat up whole dishes of coarse tripe and lamb's entrails; as much as would have sufficed three bears; then truly, [like] reformer Bestius, would he say, that the bellies of extravagant fellows ought to be branded with a red-hot iron.The same man [however], when he had reduced to smoke and ashes whatever more considerable booty he had gotten; 'Faith, said he, I do not wonder if some persons eat up their estates; since nothing is better than a fat thrush, nothing finer than a lage sow's paunch.In fact, I am just such another myself; for, when matters are a little deficient, I commend, the snug and homely fare, of sufficient resolution amid mean provisions; but, if any thing be offered better and more delicate, I, the same individual, cry out, that ye are wise and alone live well, whose wealth and estate are conspicuous from the elegance of your villas.
EPISTLE XVI.
TO QUINCTIUS.
He describes to Quinctius the form, situation, and advantages of his country house: then declares that probity consists in the consciousness of good works; liberty, in probity
Ask me not, my best Quinctius, whether my farm maintains its master with corn-fields, or enriches him with olives, or with fruits, or meadow land, or the elm tree clothed with vines: the shape and situation of my ground shall be described to you at large.
There is a continued range of mountains, except where they are separated by a shadowy vale; but in such a manner, that the approaching sun views it on the right side, and departing in his flying car warms the left.You would commend its temperature.What?If my [very] briers produce in abundance the ruddy cornels and damsens?If my oak and holm tree accommodate my cattle with plenty of acorns, and their master with a copious shade?You would say that Tarentum, brought nearer [to Rome], shone in its verdant beauty.A fountain too, deserving to give name to a river, insomuch that Hebrus does not surround Thrace more cool or more limpid, flows salubrious to the infirm head, salubrious to the bowels.These sweet, yea now (if you will credit me) these delightful retreats preserve me to you in a state of health [even] in the September season.
You live well, if you take care to support the character which you bear.Long ago, all Rome has proclaimed you happy: but I am apprehensive, lest you should give more credit concerning yourself to any one than yourself; and lest you should imagine a man happy, who differs from the wise and good; or, because the people pronounce you sound and perfectly well, lest you dissemble the lurking fever at meal-times, until a trembling seize your greased hands.The false modesty of fools conceals ulcers [rather than have them cured].If any one should mention battles which you had fought by land and sea, and in such expressions as these should soothe your listening ears: "May Jupiter, who consults the safety both of you and of the city, keep it in doubt, whether the people be more solicitous for your welfare, or you for the people's;" you might perceive these encomiums to belong [only] to Augustus when you suffer yourself to be termed a philosopher, and one of a refined life; say, pr'ythee, would you answer [to these appellations] in your own name?To be sure—I like to be called a wise and good man, as well as you.He who gave this character to-day, if he will, can take it away to-morrow: as the same people, if they have conferred the consulship on an unworthy person, may take it away from him: "Resign; it is ours," they cry: I do resign it accordingly, and chagrined withdraw.Thus if they should call me rogue, deny me to be temperate, assert that I had strangled my own father with a halter; shall I be stung, and change color at these false reproaches?Whom does false honor delight, or lying calumny terrify, except the vicious and sickly-minded?Who then is a good man?He who observes the decrees of the senate, the laws and rules of justice; by whose arbitration many and important disputes are decided; by whose surety private property, and by whose testimony causes are safe.Yet [perhaps] his own family and all the neighborhood observe this man, specious in a fair outside, [to be] polluted within.If a slave should say to me, "I have not committed a robbery, nor run away:" "You have your reward; you are not galled with the lash," I reply."I have not killed any man:" "You shall not [therefore] feed the carrion crows on the cross."I am a good man, and thrifty: your Sabine friend denies, and contradicts the fact.For the wary wolf dreads the pitfall, and the hawk the suspected snares, and the kite the concealed hook.The good, [on the contrary,] hate to sin from the love of virtue; you will commit no crime merely for the fear of punishment.Let there be a prospect of escaping, you will confound sacred and profane things together.For, when from a thousand bushels of beans you filch one, the loss in that case to me is less, but not your villainy.The honest man, whom every forum and every court of justice looks upon with reverence, whenever he makes an atonement to the gods with a wine or an ox; after he has pronounced in a clear distinguishable voice, "O father Janus, O Apollo;" moves his lips as one afraid of being heard; "O fair Laverna put it in my power to deceive; grant me the appearance of a just and upright man: throw a cloud of night over my frauds."I do not see how a covetous man can be better, how more free than a slave, when he stoops down for the sake of a penny, stuck in the road [for sport].For he who will be covetous, will also be anxious: but he that lives in a state of anxiety, will never in my estimation be free.He who is always in a hurry, and immersed in the study of augmenting his fortune, has lost the arms, and deserted the post of virtue.Do not kill your captive, if you can sell him: he will serve you advantageously: let him, being inured to drudgery, feed [your cattle], and plow; let him go to sea, and winter in the midst of the waves; let him be of use to the market, and import corn and provisions.A good and wise man will have courage to say, "Pentheus, king of Thebes, what indignities will you compel me to suffer and endure.'I will take away your goods:' my cattle, I suppose, my land, my movables and money: you may take them.'I will confine you with handcuffs and fetters under a merciless jailer.'The deity himself will discharge me, whenever I please."In my opinion, this is his meaning; I will die.Death is the ultimate boundary of human matters.
EPISTLE XVII.
TO SCAEVA.
That a life of business is preferable to a private and inactive one; the friendship of great men is a laudable acquisition, yet their favors are ever to be solicited with modesty and caution
Though, Scaeva, you have sufficient prudence of your own, and well know how to demean yourself toward your superiors; [yet] hear what are the sentiments of your old crony, who himself still requires teaching, just as if a blind man should undertake to show the way: however see, if even I can advance any thing, which you may think worth your while to adopt as your own.
If pleasant rest, and sleep till seven o'clock, delight you; if dust and the rumbling of wheels, if the tavern offend you, I shall order you off for Ferentinum.For joys are not the property of the rich alone: nor has he lived ill, who at his birth and at his death has passed unnoticed.If you are disposed to be of service to your friends, and to treat yourself with somewhat more indulgence, you, being poor, must pay your respects to the great.Aristippus, if he could dine to his satisfaction on herbs, would never frequent [the tables] of the great.If he who blames me, [replies Aristippus,] knew how to live with the great, he would scorn his vegetables.Tell me, which maxim and conduct of the two you approve; or, since you are my junior, hear the reason why Aristippus' opinion is preferable; for thus, as they report, he baffled the snarling cynic: "I play the buffoon for my own advantage, you [to please] the populace.This [conduct of mine] is better and far more honorable; that a horse may carry and a great man feed me, pay court to the great: you beg for refuse, an inferior to the [poor] giver; though you pretend you are in want of nothing."As for Aristippus, every complexion of life, every station and circumstance sat gracefully upon him, aspiring in general to greater things, yet equal to the present: on the other hand, I shall be much surprised, if a contrary way of life should become [this cynic], whom obstinacy clothes with a double rag.The one will not wait for his purple robe; but dressed in any thing, will go through the most frequented places, and without awkwardness support either character: the other will shun the cloak wrought at Miletus with greater aversion than [the bite of] dog or viper; he will die with cold, unless you restore him his ragged garment; restore it, and let him live like a fool as he is.To perform exploits, and show the citizens their foes in chains, reaches the throne of Jupiter, and aims at celestial honors.To have been acceptable to the great, is not the last of praises.It is not every man's lot to gain Corinth.He [prudently] sat still who was afraid lest he should not succeed: be it so; what then?Was it not bravely done by him, who carried his point?Either here therefore, or nowhere, is what we are investigating.The one dreads the burden, as too much for a pusillanimous soul and a weak constitution; the other under takes, and carries it through.Either virtue is an empty name, or the man who makes the experiment deservedly claims the honor and the reward.
Those who mention nothing of their poverty before their lord, will gain more than the importunate.There is a great difference between modestly accepting, or seizing by violence But this was the principle and source of every thing [which I alleged].He who says, "My sister is without a portion, my mother poor, and my estate neither salable nor sufficient for my support," cries out [in effect], "Give me a morsel of bread:" another whines, "And let the platter be carved out for me with half a share of the bounty."But if the crow could have fed in silence, he would have had better fare, and much less of quarreling and of envy.
A companion taken [by his lord] to Brundusium, or the pleasant Surrentum, who complains of the ruggedness of the roads and the bitter cold and rains, or laments that his chest is broken open and his provisions stolen; resembles the well-known tricks of a harlot, weeping frequently for her necklace, frequently for a garter forcibly taken from her; so that at length no credit is given to her real griefs and losses.Nor does he, who has been once ridiculed in the streets, care to lift up a vagrant with a [pretended] broken leg; though abundant tears should flow from him; though, swearing by holy Osiris, he says, "Believe me, I do not impose upon you; O cruel, take up the lame.""Seek out for a stranger," cries the hoarse neighborhood.
EPISTLE XVIII.
TO LOLLIUS.
He treats at large upon the cultivation of the favor of great men; and concludes with a few words concerning the acquirement of peace of mind
If I rightly know your temper, most ingenuous Lollius, you will beware of imitating a flatterer, while you profess yourself a friend.As a matron is unlike and of a different aspect from a strumpet, so will a true friend differ from the toad-eater.There is an opposite vice to this, rather the greater [of the two]; a clownish, inelegant, and disagreeable bluntness, which would recommend itself by an unshaven face and black teeth; while it desires to be termed pure freedom and true sincerity.Virtue is the medium of the two vices; and equally remote from either.The one is over-prone to complaisance, and a jester of the lowest, couch, he so reverences the rich man's nod, so repeats his speeches, and catches up his falling words; that you would take him for a school-boy saying his lesson to a rigid master, or a player acting an underpart; another often wrangles about a goat's hair, and armed engages for any trifle: "That I, truly, should not have the first credit; and that I should not boldly speak aloud, what is my real sentiment—[upon such terms], another life would be of no value."But what is the subject of this controversy?Why, whether [the gladiator] Castor or Dolichos be the cleverer fellow; whether the Minucian, or the Appian, be the better road to Brundusium.
Him whom pernicious lust, whom quick-dispatching dice strips, whom vanity dresses out and perfumes beyond his abilities, whom insatiable hunger and thirst after money, Whom a shame and aversion to poverty possess, his rich friend (though furnished with a half-score more vices) hates and abhors; or if he does not hate, governs him; and, like a pious mother, would have him more wise and virtuous than himself; and says what is nearly true: "My riches (think not to emulate me) admit of extravagance; your income is but small: a scanty gown becomes a prudent dependant: cease to vie with me."Whomsoever Eutrapelus had a mind to punish, he presented with costly garments.For now [said he] happy in his fine clothes, he will assume new schemes and hopes; he will sleep till daylight; prefer a harlot to his honest-calling; run into debt; and at last become a gladiator, or drive a gardener's hack for hire.
Do not you at any time pry into his secrets; and keep close what is intrusted to you, though put to the torture, by wine or passion.Neither commend your own inclinations, nor find fault with those of others; nor, when he is disposed to hunt, do you make verses.For by such means the amity of the twins Zethus and Amphion, broke off; till the lyre, disliked by the austere brother, was silent.Amphion is thought to have given way to his brother's humors; so do you yield to the gentle dictates of your friend in power: as often as he leads forth his dogs into the fields and his cattle laden with Aetolian nets, arise and lay aside the peevishness of your unmannerly muse, that you may sup together on the delicious fare purchased by your labor; an exercise habitual to the manly Romans, of service to their fame and life and limbs: especially when you are in health, and are able either to excel the dog in swiftness, or the boar in strength.Add [to this], that there is no one who handles martial weapons more gracefully.You well know, with what acclamations of the spectators you sustain the combats in the Campus Marcius: in fine, as yet a boy, you endured a bloody campaign and the Cantabrian wars, beneath a commander, who is now replacing the standards [recovered] from the Parthian temples: and, if any thing is wanting, assigns it to the Roman arms. And that you may not withdraw yourself, and inexcusably be absent; though you are careful to do nothing out of measure, and moderation, yet you sometimes amuse yourself at your country-seat.The [mock] fleet divides the little boats [into two squadrons]: the Actian sea-fight is represented by boys under your direction in a hostile form: your brother is the foe, your lake the Adriatic; till rapid victory crowns the one or the other with her bays.Your patron, who will perceive that you come into his taste, will applaud your sports with both his hands.
Moreover, that I may advise you (if in aught you stand in need of an adviser), take great circumspection what you say to any man, and to whom.Avoid an inquisitive impertinent, for such a one is also a tattler, nor do open ears faithfully retain what is intrusted to them; and a word, once sent abroad, flies irrevocably.
Let no slave within the marble threshold of your honored friend inflame your heart; lest the owner of the beloved damsel gratify you with so trifling a present, or, mortifying [to your wishes], torment you [with a refusal].
Look over and over again [into the merits of] such a one, as you recommend; lest afterward the faults of others strike you with shame.We are sometimes imposed upon, and now and then introduce an unworthy person.Wherefore, once deceived, forbear to defend one who suffers by his own bad conduct; but protect one whom you entirely know, and with confidence guard him with your patronage, if false accusations attack him: who being bitten with the tooth of calumny, do you not perceive that the same danger is threatening you?For it is your own concern, when the adjoining wall is on fire: and flames neglected are wont to gain strength.
The attending of the levee of a friend in power seems delightful to the unexperienced; the experienced dreads it.Do you, while your vessel is in the main, ply your business, lest a changing gale bear you back again.
The melancholy hate the merry, and the jocose the melancholy; the volatile [dislike] the sedate, the indolent the stirring and vivacious: the quaffers of pure Falernian from midnight hate one who shirks his turn; notwithstanding you swear you are afraid of the fumes of wine by night.Dispel gloominess from your forehead: the modest man generally carries the look of a sullen one; the reserved, of a churl.
In every thing you must read and consult the learned, by what means you may be enabled to pass your life in an agreeable manner: that insatiable desire may not agitate and torment you, nor the fear and hope of things that are but of little account: whether learning acquires virtue, or nature bestows it?What lessens cares, what may endear you to yourself?What perfectly renders the temper calm; honor or enticing lucre, or a secret passage and the path of an unnoticed life?
For my part, as often as the cooling rivulet Digentia refreshes me (Digentia, of which Mandela drinks, a village wrinkled with cold); what, my friend, do you think are my sentiments, what do you imagine I pray for?Why, that my fortune may remain as it is now; or even [if it be something] less: and that I may live to myself, what remains of my time, if the gods will that aught do remain: that I may have a good store of books, and corn provided for the year; lest I fluctuate in suspense of each uncertain hour.But it is sufficient to sue Jove [for these externals], which he gives and takes away [at pleasure]; let him grant life, let him grant wealth: I myself will provide equanimity of temper.
EPISTLE XIX.
TO MAECENAS.
He shows the folly of some persons who would imitate; and the envy of others who would censure him
O learned Maecenas, if you believe old Gratinus, no verses which are written by water-drinkers can please, or be long-lived.Ever since Bacchus enlisted the brain-sick poets among the Satyrs and the Fauns, the sweet muses have usually smelt of wine in the morning.Homer, by his excessive praises of wine, is convicted as a booser: father Ennius himself never sallied forth to sing of arms, unless in drink."I will condemn the sober to the bar and the prater's bench, and deprive the abstemious of the power of singing."
As soon as he gave out this edict, the poets did not cease to contend in midnight cups, and to smell of them by day.What!if any savage, by a stern countenance and bare feet, and the texture of a scanty gown, should imitate Cato; will he represent the virtue and morals of Cato?The tongue that imitated Timagenes was the destruction of the Moor, while he affected to be humorous, and attempted to seem eloquent.The example that is imitable in its faults, deceives [the ignorant].Soh!if I was to grow up pale by accident, [these poetasters] would drink the blood-thinning cumin.O ye imitators, ye servile herd, how often your bustlings have stirred my bile, how often my mirth!
I was the original, who set my free footsteps upon the vacant sod; I trod not in the steps of others.He who depends upon himself, as leader, commands the swarm.I first showed to Italy the Parian iambics: following the numbers and spirit of Archilochus, but not his subject and style, which afflicted Lycambes.You must not, however, crown me with a more sparing wreath, because I was afraid to alter the measure and structure of his verse: for the manly Sappho governs her muse by the measures of Archilochus, so does Alcaeus; but differing from him in the materials and disposition [of his lines], neither does he seek for a father-in-law whom he may defame with his fatal lampoons, nor does he tie a rope for his betrothed spouse in scandalous verse.Him too, never celebrated by any other tongue, I the Roman lyrist first made known.It delights me, as I bring out new productions, to be perused by the eyes, and held in the hands of the ingenuous.
Would you know why the ungrateful reader extols and is fond of many works at home, unjustly decries them without doors?I hunt not after the applause of the inconstant vulgar, at the expense of entertainments, and for the bribe of a worn-out colt: I am not an auditor of noble writers, nor a vindictive reciter, nor condescend to court the tribes and desks of the grammarians.Hence are these tears.If I say that "I am ashamed to repeat my worthless writings to crowded theatres, and give an air of consequence to trifles:" "You ridicule us," says [one of them], "and you reserve those pieces for the ears of Jove: you are confident that it is you alone that can distill the poetic honey, beautiful in your own eyes."At these words I am afraid to turn up my nose; and lest I should be torn by the acute nails of my adversary, "This place is disagreeable," I cry out, "and I demand a prorogation of the contest."For contest is wont to beget trembling emulation and strife, and strife cruel enmities and funereal war.
EPISTLE XX.
TO HIS BOOK.
In vain he endeavors to retain his book, desirous of getting abroad; tells it what trouble it is to undergo, and imparts some things to be said of him to posterity.
You seem, my book, to look wistfully at Janus and Vertumnus; to the end that you may be set out for sale, neatly polished by the pumice-stone of the Sosii.You hate keys and seals, which are agreeable to a modest [volume]; you grieve that you are shown but to a few, and extol public places; though educated in another manner.Away with you, whither you are so solicitous of going down: there will be no returning for you, when you are once sent out."Wretch that I am, what have I done?What did I want?"—you will say: when any one gives you ill treatment, and you know that you will be squeezed into small compass, as soon as the eager reader is satiated.But, if the augur be not prejudiced by resentment of your error, you shall be caressed at Rome [only] till your youth be passed.When, thumbed by the hands of the vulgar, you begin to grow dirty; either you shall in silence feed the grovelling book-worms, or you shall make your escape to Utica, or shall be sent bound to Ilerda.Your disregarded adviser shall then laugh [at you]: as he, who in a passion pushed his refractory ass over the precipice.For who would save [an ass] against his will?This too awaits you, that faltering dotage shall seize on you, to teach boys their rudiments in the skirts of the city.But when the abating warmth of the sun shall attract more ears, you shall tell them, that I was the son of a freedman, and extended my wings beyond my nest; so that, as much as you take away from my family, you may add to my merit: that I was in favor with the first men in the state, both in war and peace; of a short stature, gray before my time, calculated for sustaining heat, prone to passion, yet so as to be soon appeased.If any one should chance to inquire my age; let him know that I had completed four times eleven Decembers, in the year in which Lollius admitted Lepidus as his colleague.
THE SECOND BOOK OF THE EPISTLES OF HORACE.
EPISTLE I.
TO AUGUSTUS.
He honors him with the highest compliments; then treats copiously of poetry, its origin, character, and excellence
Since you alone support so many and such weighty concerns, defend Italy with your arms, adorn it by your virtue, reform it by your laws; I should offend, O Caesar, against the public interests, if I were to trespass upon your time with a long discourse.
Romulus, and father Bacchus, and Castor and Pollux, after great achievements, received into the temples of the gods, while they were improving the world and human nature, composing fierce dissensions, settling property, building cities, lamented that the esteem which they expected was not paid in proportion to their merits.He who crushed the dire Hydra, and subdued the renowned monsters by his forefated labor, found envy was to be tamed by death [alone].For he burns by his very splendor, whose superiority is oppressive to the arts beneath him: after his decease, he shall be had in honor.On you, while present among us, we confer mature honors, and rear altars where your name is to be sworn by; confessing that nothing equal to you has hitherto risen, or will hereafter rise.But this your people, wise and just in one point (for preferring you to our own, you to the Grecian heroes), by no means estimate other things with like proportion and measure: and disdain and detest every thing, but what they see removed from earth and already gone by; such favorers are they of antiquity, as to assert that the Muses [themselves] upon Mount Alba, dictated the twelve tables, forbidding to trangress, which the decemviri ratified; the leagues of our kings concluded with the Gabii, or the rigid Sabines; the records of the pontifices, and the ancient volumes of the augurs.
If, because the most ancient writings of the Greeks are also the best, Roman authors are to be weighed in the same scale, there is no need we should say much: there is nothing hard in the inside of an olive, nothing [hard] in the outside of a nut.We are arrived at the highest pitch of success [in arts]: we paint, and sing, and wrestle more skillfully than the annointed Greeks.If length of time makes poems better, as it does wine, I would fain know how many years will stamp a value upon writings.A writer who died a hundred years ago, is he to be reckoned among the perfect and ancient, or among the mean and modern authors?Let some fixed period exclude all dispute.He is an old and good writer who completes a hundred years.What!one that died a month or a year later, among whom is he to be ranked?Among the old poets, or among those whom both the present age and posterity will disdainfully reject?He may fairly be placed among the ancients, who is younger either by a short month only, or even by a whole year.I take the advantage of this concession, and pull away by little and little, as [if they were] the hairs of a horse's tail: and I take away a single one and then again another single one; till, like a tumbling heap, [my adversary], who has recourse to annals and estimates excellence by the year, and admires nothing but what Libitina has made sacred, falls to the ground.
Ennius the wise, the nervous, and (as our critics say) a second Homer, seems lightly to regard what becomes of his promises and Pythagorean dreams. Is not Naevius in people's hands, and sticking almost fresh in their memory?So sacred is every ancient poem.As often as a debate arises, whether this poet or the other be preferable; Pacuvius bears away the character of a learned, Accius, of a lofty writer; Afranius' gown is said to have fitted Menander; Plautus, to hurry after the pattern of the Sicilian Epicharmus; Caecilius, to excel in gravity, Terence in contrivance.These mighty Rome learns by heart, and these she views crowded in her narrow theater; these she esteems and accounts her poets from Livy the writer's age down to our time.Sometimes the populace see right; sometimes they are wrong.If they admire and extol the ancient poets so as to prefer nothing before, to compare nothing with them, they err; if they think and allow that they express some things in an obsolete, most in a stiff, many in a careless manner; they both think sensibly, and agree with me, and determine with the assent of Jove himself.Not that I bear an ill-will against Livy's epics, and would doom them to destruction, which I remember the severe Orbilius taught me when a boy; but they should seem correct, beautiful, and very little short of perfect, this I wonder at: among which if by chance a bright expression shines forth, and if one line or two [happen to be] somewhat terse and musical, this unreasonably carries off and sells the whole poem.I am disgusted that any thing should be found fault with, not because it is a lumpish composition or inelegant, but because it is modern; and that not a favorable allowance, but honor and rewards are demanded for the old writers.Should I scruple, whether or not Atta's drama trod the saffron and flowers in a proper manner, almost all the fathers would cry out that modesty was lost; since I attempted to find fault with those pieces which the pathetic Aesopus, which the skillful Roscius acted: either because they esteem nothing right, but what has pleased themselves; or because they think it disgraceful to submit to their juniors, and to confess, now they are old, that what they learned when young is deserving only to be destroyed.Now he who extols Numa's Salian hymn, and would alone seem to understand that which, as well as me, he is ignorant of, does not favor and applaud the buried geniuses, but attacks ours, enviously hating us moderns and every thing of ours.Whereas if novelty had been detested by the Greeks as much as by us, what at this time would there have been ancient?Or what what would there have been for common use to read and thumb, common to every body.
When first Greece, her wars being over, began to trifle, and through prosperity to glide into folly; she glowed with the love, one while of wrestlers, another while of horses; was fond of artificers in marble, or in ivory, or in brass; hung her looks and attention upon a picture; was delighted now with musicians, now with tragedians; as if an infant girl she sported under the nurse; soon cloyed, she abandoned what [before] she earnestly desired.What is there that pleases or is odious, which you may not think mutable?This effect had happy times of peace, and favorable gales [of fortune].
At Rome it was long pleasing and customary to be up early with open doors, to expound the laws to clients; to lay out money cautiously upon good securities: to hear the elder, and to tell the younger by what means their fortunes might increase and pernicious luxury be diminished.The inconstant people have changed their mind, and glow with a universal ardor for learning: young men and grave fathers sup crowned with leaves, and dictate poetry.I myself, who affirm that I write no verses, am found more false than the Parthians: and, awake before the sun is risen, I call for my pen and papers and desk.He that is ignorant of a ship is afraid to work a ship; none but he who has learned, dares administer [even] southern wood to the sick; physicians undertake what belongs to physicians; mechanics handle tools; but we, unlearned and learned, promiscuously write poems.
Yet how great advantages this error and this slight madness has, thus compute: the poet's mind is not easily covetous; fond of verses, he studies this alone; he laughs at losses, flights of slaves, fires; he contrives no fraud against his partner, or his young ward; he lives on husks, and brown bread; though dastardly and unfit for war, he is useful at home, if you allow this, that great things may derive assistance from small ones.The poet fashions the child's tender and lisping mouth, and turns his ear even at this time from obscene language; afterward also he forms his heart with friendly precepts, the corrector of his rudeness, and envy, and passion; he records virtuous actions, he instructs the rising age with approved examples, he comforts the indigent and the sick.Whence should the virgin, stranger to a husband, with the chaste boys, learn the solemn prayer, had not the muse given a poet?The chorus entreats the divine aid, and finds the gods propitious; sweet in learned prayer, they implore the waters of the heavens; avert diseases, drive off impending dangers, obtain both peace and years enriched with fruits.With song the gods above are appeased, with song the gods below.
Our ancient swains, stout and happy with a little, after the grain was laid up, regaling in a festival season their bodies and even their minds, patient of hardships through the hope of their ending, with their slaves and faithful wife, the partners of their labors, atoned with a hog [the goddess] Earth, with milk Silvanus, with flowers and wine the genius that reminds us of our short life.Invented by this custom, the Femminine licentiousness poured forth its rustic taunts in alternate stanzas; and this liberty, received down through revolving years, sported pleasingly; till at length the bitter raillery began to be turned into open rage, and threatening with impunity to stalk through reputable families.They, who suffered from its bloody tooth smarted with the pain; the unhurt likewise were concerned for the common condition: further also, a law and a penalty were enacted, which forbade that any one should be stigmatized in lampoon.Through fear of the bastinado, they were reduced to the necessity of changing their manner, and of praising and delighting.
Captive Greece took captive her fierce conqueror, and introduced her arts into rude Latium.Thus flowed off the rough Saturnian numbers, and delicacy expelled the rank venom: but for a long time there remained, and at this day remain traces of rusticity.For late [the Roman writer] applied his genius to the Grecian pages; and enjoying rest after the Punic wars, began to search what useful matter Sophocles, and Thespis, and Aeschylus afforded: he tried, too, if he could with dignity translate their works; and succeeded in pleasing himself, being by nature [of a genius] sublime and strong; for he breathes a spirit tragic enough, and dares successfully; but fears a blot, and thinks it disgraceful in his writings.
Comedy is believed to require the least pains, because it fetches its subjects from common life; but the less indulgence It meets with, the more labor it requires.See how Plautus supports the character of a lover under age, how that of a covetous father, how those of a cheating pimp: how Dossennus exceeds all measure in his voracious parasites; with how loose a sock he runs over the stage: for he is glad to put the money in his pocket, after this regardless whether his play stand or fall.
Him, whom glory in her airy car has brought upon the stage, the careless spectator dispirits, the attentive renders more diligent: so slight, so small a matter it is, which overturns or raises a mind covetous of praise!Adieu the ludicrous business [of dramatic writing], if applause denied brings me back meagre, bestowed [makes me] full of flesh and spirits.
This too frequently drives away and deters even an adventurous poet?that they who are in number more, in worth and rank inferior, unlearned and foolish, and (if the equestrian order dissents) ready to fall to blows, in the midst of the play, call for either a bear or boxers; for in these the mob delight.Nay, even all the pleasures of our knights is now transferred from the ear to the uncertain eye, and their vain amusements.The curtains are kept down for four hours or more, while troops of horse and companies of foot flee over the stage: next is dragged forward the fortune of kings, with their hands bound behind them; chariots, litters, carriages, ships hurry on; captive ivory, captive Corinth, is borne along.Democritus, if he were on earth, would laugh; whether a panther a different genus confused with the camel, or a white elephant attracted the eye of the crowd.He would view the people more attentively than the sports themselves, as affording him more strange sights than the actor: and for the writers, he would think they told their story to a deaf ass.For what voices are able to overbear the din with which our theatres resound?You would think the groves of Garganus, or the Tuscan Sea, was roaring; with so great noise are viewed the shows and contrivances, and foreign riches: with which the actor being daubed over, as soon as he appears upon the stage, each right hand encounters with the left.Has he said any thing yet?Nothing at all.What then pleases?The cloth imitating [the color of] violets, with the dye of Tarentum.
And, that you may not think I enviously praise those kinds of writing which I decline undertaking, when others handle them well: that poet to me seems able to walk upon an extended rope, who with his fictions grieves my soul, enrages, soothes, fills it with false terrors, as an enchanter; and sets me now in Thebes, now in Athens.
But of those too, who had rather trust themselves with a reader, than bear the disdain of an haughty spectator, use a little care; if you would fill with books [the library you have erected], an offering worthy of Apollo, and add an incentive to the poets, that with greater eagerness they may apply to verdant Helicon.
We poets, it is true (that I may hew down my own vineyards), often do ourselves many mischiefs, when we present a work to you while thoughtful or fatigued; when we are pained, if my friend has dared to find fault with one line; when, unasked, we read over again passages already repeated: when we lament that our labors do not appear, and war poems, spun out in a fine thread: when we hope the thing will come to this, that as soon as you are apprised we are penning verses, you will kindly of yourself send for us and secure us from want, and oblige us to write.But yet it is worth while to know, who shall be the priests of your virtue signalized in war and at home, which is not to be trusted to an unworthy poet.A favorite of king Alexander the Great was that Choerilus, who to his uncouth and ill-formed verses owed the many pieces he received of Philip's royal coin.But, as ink when touched leaves behind it a mark and a blot, so writers as it were stain shining actions with foul poetry.That same king, who prodigally bought so dear so ridiculous a poem, by an edict forbade that any one beside Apelles should paint him, or that any other than Lysippus should mold brass for the likeness of the valiant Alexander.But should you call that faculty of his, so delicate in discerning other arts, to [judge of] books and of these gifts of the muses, you would swear he had been born in the gross air of the Boeotians.Yet neither do Virgil and Varius, your beloved poets, disgrace your judgment of them, and the presents which they have received with great honor to the donor; nor do the features of illustrious men appear more lively when expressed by statues of brass, than their manners and minds expressed by the works of a poet.Nor would I rather compose such tracts as these creeping on the ground, than record deeds of arms, and the situations of countries, and rivers, and forts reared upon mountains, and barbarous kingdoms, and wars brought to a conclusion through the whole world under your auspices, and the barriers that confine Janus the guardian of peace, and Rome treaded by the Parthians under your government, if I were but able to do as much as I could wish.But neither does your majesty admit of humble poetry, nor dares my modesty attempt a subject which my strength is unable to support.Yet officiousness foolishly disgusts the person whom it loves; especially when it recommends itself by numbers, and the art [of writing].For one learns sooner, and more willingly remembers, that which a man derides, than that which he approves and venerates.I value not the zeal that gives me uneasiness; nor do I wish to be set out any where in wax with a face formed for the worse, nor to be celebrated in ill-composed verses; lest I blush, when presented with the gross gift; and, exposed in an open box along with my author, be conveyed into the street that sells frankincense, and spices, and pepper, and whatever is wrapped up in impertinent writings.
EPISTLE II.
TO JULIUS FLORUS.
In apologizing for not having written to him, he shows that the well-ordering of life is of more importance than the composition of verses
O Florus, faithful friend to the good and illustrious Nero, if by chance any one should offer to sell you a boy born at Tibur and Gabii, and should treat with you in this manner; "This [boy who is] both good-natured and well-favored from head to foot, shall become and be yours for eight thousand sesterces; a domestic slave, ready in his attendance at his master's nod; initiated in the Greek language, of a capacity for any art; you may shape out any thing with [such] moist clay; besides, he will sing in an artless manner, but yet entertaining to one drinking.Lavish promises lessen credit, when any one cries up extravagantly the wares he has for sale, which he wants to put off.No emergency obliges me [to dispose of him]: though poor, I am in nobody's debt.None of the chapmen would do this for you; nor should every body readily receive the same favor from me.Once, [in deed,] he [loitered on an errand]; and (as it happens) absconded, being afraid of the lash that hangs in the staircase.Give me your money, if this runaway trick, which I have expected, does not offend you."In my opinion, the man may take his price, and be secure from any punishment: you wittingly purchased a good-for-nothing boy: the condition of the contract was told you.Nevertheless you prosecute this man, and detain him in an unjust suit.
I told you, at your setting out, that I was indolent: I told you I was almost incapable of such offices: that you might not chide me in angry mood, because no letter [from me] came to hand.What then have I profited, if you nevertheless arraign the conditions that make for me?On the same score too you complain, that, being worse than my word, I do not send you the verses you expected.
A soldier of Lucullus, [having run through] a great many hardships, was robbed of his collected stock to a penny, as he lay snoring in the night quite fatigued: after this, like a ravenous wolf, equally exasperated at himself and the enemy, eager, with his hungry fangs, he beat off a royal guard from a post (as they report) very strongly fortified, and well supplied with stores.Famous on account of this exploit, he is adorned with honorable rewards, and receives twenty thousand sesterces into the bargain.It happened about this time that his officer being inclined to batter down a certain fort, began to encourage the same man, with words that might even have given courage to a coward: "Go, my brave fellow, whither your valor calls you: go with prosperous step, certain to receive ample rewards for your merit.Why do you hesitate?"Upon this, he arch, though a rustic: "He who has lost his purse, will go whither you wish," says he.
It was my lot to have Rome for my nurse, and to be instructed [from the Iliad] how much the exasperated Achilles prejudiced the Greeks.Good Athens give me some additional learning: that is to say, to be able to distinguish a right line from a curve, and seek after truth in the groves of Academus.But the troublesome times removed me from that pleasant spot; and the tide of a civil war carried me away, unexperienced as I was, into arms, [into arms] not likely to be a match for the sinews of Augustus Caesar.Whence, as soon as [the battle of] Philippi dismissed me in an abject condition, with my wings clipped, and destitute both of house and land, daring poverty urged me on to the composition of verses: but now, having more than is wanted, what medicines would be efficacious enough to cure my madness, if I did not think it better to rest than to write verses.
The advancing years rob us of every thing: they have taken away my mirth, my gallantry, my revelings, and play: they are now proceeding to force poetry from me.What would you have me do?
In short, all persons do not love and admire the same things.Ye delight in the ode: one man is pleased with iambics; another with satires written in the manner of Bion, and virulent wit.Three guests scarcely can be found to agree, craving very different dishes with various palate.What shall I give?What shall I not give?You forbid, what another demands: what you desire, that truly is sour and disgustful to the [other] two.
Beside other [difficulties], do you think it practicable for me to write poems at Rome, amid so many solicitudes and so many fatigues?One calls me as his security, another to hear his works, all business else apart; one lives on the mount of Quirinus, the other in the extremity of the Aventine; both must be waited on.The distances between them, you see, are charmingly commodious."But the streets are clear, so that there can be no obstacle to the thoughtful."—A builder in heat hurries along with his mules and porters: the crane whirls aloft at one time a stone, at another a great piece of timber: the dismal funerals dispute the way with the unwieldy carriages: here runs a mad dog, there rushes a sow begrimed with mire.Go now, and meditate with yourself your harmonious verses.All the whole choir of poets love the grove, and avoid cities, due votaries to Bacchus delighting in repose and shade.Would you have me, amid so great noise both by night and day, [attempt] to sing, and trace the difficult footsteps of the poets?A genius who has chosen quiet Athens for his residence, and has devoted seven years to study, and has grown old in books and study, frequently walks forth more dumb than a statue, and shakes the people's sides with laughter: here, in the midst of the billows and tempests of the city, can I be thought capable of connecting words likely to wake the sound of the lyre?
At Rome there was a rhetorician, brother to a lawyer: [so fond of each other were they,] that they would hear nothing but the mere praises of each other: insomuch, that the latter appeared a Gracchus to the former, the former a Mucius to the latter.Why should this frenzy affect the obstreperous poets in a less degree?I write odes, another elegies: a work wonderful to behold, and burnished by the nine muses!Observe first, with what a fastidious air, with what importance we survey the temple [of Apollo] vacant for the Roman poets.In the next place you may follow (if you are at leisure) and hear what each produces, and wherefore each weaves for himself the crown.Like Samnite gladiators in slow duel, till candle-light, we are beaten and waste out the enemy with equal blows: I came off Alcaeus, in his suffrage; he is mine, who?Why who but Callimachus?Or, if he seems to make a greater demand, he becomes Mimnermus, and grows in fame by the chosen appellation.Much do I endure in order to pacify this passionate race of poets, when I am writing; and submissive court the applause of the people; [but,] having finished my studies and recovered my senses, I the same man can now boldly stop my open ears against reciters.
Those who make bad verses are laughed at: but they are pleased in writing, and reverence themselves; and if you are silent, they, happy, fall to praising of their own accord whatever they have written.But he who desires to execute a genuine poem, will with his papers assume the spirit of an honest critic: whatever words shall have but little clearness and elegance, or shall be without weight and held unworthy of estimation, he will dare to displace: though they may recede with reluctance, and still remain in the sanctuary of Vesta: those that have been long hidden from the people he kindly will drag forth, and bring to light those expressive denominations of things that were used by the Catos and Cethegi of ancient times, though now deformed dust and neglected age presses upon them: he will adopt new words, which use, the parent [of language], shall produce: forcible and perspicuous, and bearing the utmost similitude to a limpid stream, he will pour out his treasures, and enrich Latium with a comprehensive language.The luxuriant he will lop, the too harsh he will soften with a sensible cultivation: those void of expression he will discard: he will exhibit the appearance of one at play; and will be [in his invention] on the rack, like [a dancer on the stage], who one while affects the motions of a satyr, at another of a clumsy cyclops.
I had rather be esteemed a foolish and dull writer, while my faults please myself, or at least escape my notice, than be wise and smart for it.There lived at Argos a man of no mean rank, who imagined that he was hearing some admirable tragedians, a joyful sitter and applauder in an empty theater: who [nevertheless] could support the other duties of life in a just manner; a truly honest neighbor, an amiable host, kind toward his wife, one who could pardon his slaves, nor would rave at the breaking of a bottle-seal: one who [had sense enough] to avoid a precipice, or an open well.This man, being cured at the expense and by the care of his relations, when he had expelled by the means of pure hellebore the disorder and melancholy humor, and returned to himself; "By Pollux, my friends (said he), you have destroyed, not saved me; from whom my pleasure is thus taken away, and a most agreeable delusion of mind removed by force."
In a word, it is of the first consequence to be wise in the rejection of trifles, and leave childish play to boys for whom it is in season, and not to scan words to be set to music for the Roman harps, but [rather] to be perfectly an adept in the numbers and proportions of real life.Thus therefore I commune with myself, and ponder these things in silence: "If no quantity of water would put an end to your thirst, you would tell it to your physicians.And is there none to whom you dare confess, that the more you get the more you crave?If you had a wound which was not relieved by a plant or root prescribed to you, you would refuse being doctored with a root or plant that did no good.You have heard that vicious folly left the man, on whom the gods conferred wealth; and though you are nothing wiser, since you become richer, will you nevertheless use the same monitors as before?But could riches make you wise, could they make you less covetous and mean-spirited, you well might blush, if there lived on earth one more avaricious than yourself."
If that be any man's property, which he has bought by the pound and penny, [and] there be some things to which (if you give credit to the lawyers) possession gives a claim, [then] the field that feeds you is your own; and Orbius' steward, when he harrows the corn which is soon to give you flour, finds you are [in effect] the proper master.You give your money; you receive grapes, pullets, eggs, a hogshead of strong wine: certainly in this manner you by little and little purchase that farm, for which perhaps the owner paid three hundred thousand sesterces, or more.What does it signify, whether you live on what was paid for the other day, or a long while ago?He who purchased the Aricinian and Veientine fields some time since, sups on bought vegetables, however he may think otherwise; boils his pot with bought wood at the approach of the chill evening.But he calls all that his own, as far as where the planted poplar prevents quarrels among neighbors by a determinate limitation: as if anything were a man's property, which in a moment of the fleeting hour, now by solicitations, now by sale, now by violence, and now by the supreme lot [of all men], may change masters and come into another's jurisdiction.Thus since the perpetual possession is given to none, and one man's heir urges on another's, as wave impels wave, of what importance are houses, or granaries; or what the Lucanian pastures joined to the Calabrian; if Hades, inexorable to gold, mows down the great together with the small?
Gems, marble, ivory, Tuscan statues, pictures, silver-plate, robes dyed with Getulian purple, there are who can not acquire; and there are others, who are not solicitous of acquiring.Of two brothers, why one prefers lounging, play, and perfume, to Herod's rich palm-tree groves; why the other, rich and uneasy, from the rising of the light to the evening shade, subdues his woodland with fire and steel: our attendant genius knows, who governs the planet of our nativity, the divinity [that presides] over human nature, who dies with each individual, of various complexion, white and black.
I will use, and take out from my moderate stock, as much as my exigence demands: nor will I be under any apprehensions what opinion my heir shall hold concerning me, when he shall, find [I have left him] no more than I had given me.And yet I, the same man, shall be inclined to know how far an open and cheerful person differs from a debauchee, and how greatly the economist differs from the miser.For there is some distinction whether you throw away your money in a prodigal manner, or make an entertainment without grudging, nor toil to accumulate more; or rather, as formerly in Minerva's holidays, when a school-boy, enjoys by starts the short and pleasant vacation.
Let sordid poverty be far away.I, whether borne in a large or small vessel, let me be borne uniform and the same.I am not wafted with swelling sail before the north wind blowing fair: yet I do not bear my course of life against the adverse south.In force, genius, figure, virtue, station, estate, the last of the first-rate, [yet] still before those of the last.
You are not covetous, [you say]:—go to.—What then?Have the rest of your vices fled from you, together with this?Is your breast free from vain ambition?Is it free from the fear of death and from anger?Can you laugh at dreams, magic terrors, wonders, witches, nocturnal goblins, and Thessalian prodigies?Do you number your birth-days with a grateful mind?Are you forgiving to your friends?Do you grow milder and better as old age approaches?What profits you only one thorn eradicated out of many?If you do not know how to live in a right manner, make way for those that do.You have played enough, eaten and drunk enough, it is time for you to walk off: lest having tippled too plentifully, that age which plays the wanton with more propriety, and drive you [off the stage].